Malaysia ranks 54 in global rule of law index

 

Malaysia has fared marginally poorer on the World Justice Project's (WJP) rule of law index, scoring 0.57 down 1.4 percent.

This placed Malaysia in the 54th rank out of 139 countries and jurisdictions worldwide surveyed. Malaysia's position was unchanged compared to the previous year.

The WJP’s framework for the rule of law covers eight factors - constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice.

Malaysia ranked lowest in the open government category at 104 among 139 countries and 12 out of 15 countries.

Its average rank was boosted by placing 34 out of 139 countries in the civil justice category.

The annual Washington-based index relied on more than 138,000 household surveys and 4,200 legal practitioner and expert surveys to measure how the rule of law is experienced and perceived worldwide.

This year's report is the first to be issued since the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020 and it showed multi-year negative trends that worsened during this period.

Regionally, East Asia and the Pacific’s top performer in the index was New Zealand (seventh out of 139 countries globally), followed by Australia and Japan.

The three countries with the lowest scores in the region were the Philippines, Myanmar and Cambodia (138th out of 139 countries globally).

In the last year, 11 out of 15 countries declined in East Asia and the Pacific. Of those 11 countries, five had also declined in the previous year.

'Global deterioration in rule of law'

According to WJP, the 2021 Index found more countries had declined than improved in overall rule of law performance for the fourth consecutive year.

"The Sustainable Development Goals promised 'access to justice for all' by 2030, but for the past 18 months, the world has been headed in the wrong direction," said WJP chief research officer Alejandro Ponce

In a year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, 74.2 percent of the surveyed countries experienced declines in rule of law performance, representing 84.7 percent of the world's population or approximately 6.5 billion people.

This was in contrast to only 25.8 percent of countries that recorded improved scores.

Malaysia joined a list of countries that had imposed an emergency status and the index noted how the pandemic led to constraints on government powers and diminished civic spaces.

Other notable findings include 94 percent of countries in the index experienced increased delays in administrative, civil or criminal proceedings.

Overall Denmark, Norway and Finland were ranked as the top three among 139 countries, while the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia and Venezuela had the lowest overall rule of law scores. - Mkini