Enforcement Systems – Differences and Similarities

In modern civil procedural law, there are different organizational structures of national civil enforcement systems.

According to the principle of national procedural autonomy, each state regulates the enforcement procedure independently. Because of this, it is very difficult to talk about special systems for the civil enforcement of court decisions and other judicial or non-judicial enforceable titles at the macro level. The main reason for this is the fact that the matter of enforcement procedural law was neglected for a long period of time, and the harmonization of the enforcement procedure only began to be considered in the middle of the XIX-th century.

However, in general, the International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law speaks of the existence of four systems for the enforcement of court decisions and other judicial or non-judicial enforceable titles, namely: 1) enforcement of decisions by courts, 2) enforcement of decisions by private enforcement bodies (bailiff system of enforcement), 3) mixed systems of enforcement and 4) administrative systems for enforcement.

The system for the enforcement of decisions and other judicial or non-judicial enforceable titles by courts without exceptions is specific to the Anglo-American procedural circle (common law system), while in the Romanian-German procedural circle of the civil law system the enforcement of decisions and other judicial or non-judicial enforceable titles can be under the competence of the courts or under the competence of bailiffs, although combined models can also be encountered. In the Scandinavian procedural circle as a part of the civil law system, is dominant the system of enforcement of decisions by private enforcement bodies or the administrative system of enforcement.

The aim of this paper is to perceive the similarities and differences between national enforcement systems analyzed at the macro level. To achieve this goal, the comparative method and the analysis method will be used.