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You arrived at this page by selecting:As the court process grinds slowly on sometimes people look for ways of speeding it up, and the system does allow this to happen in certain circumstances.
For example, if you brought a case to court that is an extremely strong case, which the other side cannot possibly expect to defend successfully, then you can apply to the judge for an early judgment. This would save you the bother and delay of having to actually go to court and prove your case by evidence, etc.
This sort of thing is generally called 'summary judgement', in the legal jargon, or sometimes 'striking out'. The difference between the two technically speaking is that summary judgement is where you say your opponent cannot prove his case and striking out is where you say your opponent would still lose even if he did prove it.
Sometimes a summary judgement or a striking out is only part of a party's case, or sometimes it can be the whole of it. If it is the whole of it, then that entitles the other party to final judgement straightaway. This is a sort of victory by default, rather than having to go the whole way to prove the case in court, in the traditionally full manner.
These speeded up procedures are not however easy to achieve. Judges try to be very fair to everybody and so they would need a lot of persuading to be convinced that a party should win before the other party has had their full say. So whilst summary judgement and striking out orders are available on request, asking for them doesn't mean you would get one, and if you ask for such an order without sufficient merit you could find that it will rebound on you by incurring you the displeasure of the judge. In that event a costs order would be made against you for having taken up the time of the Court on an unmeritorious application.
