[JURIST] The Council of Europe (COE) [official website] reported Wednesday that several member states frequently fail to comply with judicial decisions against public authorities handed down by their own domestic courts. A COE expert panel [program, PDF] determined last week that general non-enforcement of court decisions is widespread in Georgia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.

In a statement [text] summarizing its conclusions, the panelists said:

[I]t is incumbent on the State to execute spontaneously all judicial decisions rendered against public authorities, without compelling the claimants to go through enforcement proceedings. [However,] this spontaneous execution continues to be hampered by a number of persistent problems resulting in repetitive violations of the Convention in a number of states.