Ex parte:
In the law, ex parte is used in several contexts.
Legal Ethics
In legal ethics, ex parte refers to improper contact with a party or a judge. Ethical rules typically forbid a lawyer from contacting the judge or the opposing party without the other party’s lawyer also being present. A breach of these rules is referred to as improper ex parte contact.
Civil Procedure
In civil procedure, ex parte is used to refer to motions for orders that can be granted without waiting for a response from the other side. Generally, these are orders that are only in place until further hearings can be held, such as a temporary restraining order.
Typically, a court will be hesitant to make an ex parte motion. This is because the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee a right to due process, and ex parte motions–due to their exclusion of one party–risk violating the excluded party’s right to due process. [Legal Information Institute / Cornell Law School]
Noted in Case No. 19-cv-01136 (APM) for the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Judge Amit Mehta:
I do, therefore, . . . solemnly protest against these proceedings of the House of Representatives, because they are in violation of the rights of the coordinate executive branch of the Government, and subversive of its constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own advantage, to swear before ex parte committees to pretended private conversations between the President and themselves, incapable, from their nature, of being disproved; thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading him in the eyes of the country . . .
– President James Buchanan
Buchanan, incidentally, lost his suit, a suit much like the cited case.
Who said judges can’t have fun?
