The World Justice Project (WJP) – an independent, multidisciplinary organisation working to advance the rule of law worldwide – published its Global Rule of Law (RoL) Index of 2021 on 14 October, 2021. It also organised the Asia Pacific Regional Launch of the RoL Index virtually on 28 October, 2021. The Index assessed the RoL situation in 139 countries and jurisdictions across the globe. WJP prepares the Index by analysing data gathered by conducting national surveys of over 138,000 households and 4,200 legal practitioners and experts worldwide.

Bangladesh ranked 124th among 139 nations in 2021. While this is an improvement by one position in the Index compared to 2020 (125th), the overall RoL situation (adherence to RoL) deteriorated 2.8% this year, stated the WJP's country press release. Bangladesh also ranked 4th in South Asia out of 6 countries. Denmark was the top-ranked country in the Index (1st) globally, while Nepal was the top-ranked country in the Index (70th) from South Asia.

The specific breakdown of the factors depicts that Bangladesh ranks the worst in South Asia (6th) in two areas: constraints on government power and fundamental rights. It ranks 5th in South Asia in the following three areas: open government, civil justice and criminal justice. In two other factors – regulatory enforcement and absence of corruption – Bangladesh ranks 4th in South Asia. Its best ranking in South Asia (2nd) is in order and security. In all these 8 factors, globally, Bangladesh's best ranking comes in open government (102nd), while its worst is in fundamental rights (134th).    

The Honorable Chief Justice of Singapore, Sundaresh Menon, was the keynote speaker at the Asia Pacific Regional Launch of the Index. Shreya Basu, Deputy Director and Regional Lead, Asia-Pacific, Open Government Partnership; John Nery, Opinion Columnist at the Philippine Daily Inquirer; Moe Thuzar, Fellow & Coordinator, Myanmar Studies Programme, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; and Fu Hualing, Professor in Law, and holder of the Warren Chan Professorship in Human Rights and Responsibilities, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong were present as speakers at the event.

The speakers at the event reiterated the Index's findings that 74.2% of countries witnessed declines in their RoL performances. Conversely, the performance of 25.8% of countries improved in the Index. These 74.2% countries account for 84.7% of the world's population (approximately 6.5bn people). Areas that have depicted the most significant decline during the COVID-19 pandemic relating to RoL are constraints on government powers, civic space, timeliness of justice delivery and absence of discrimination, says the Index.    

More alarming is that 82% of the countries saw a decline in at least one dimension of civic space over the last calendar year, including civic participation, freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom of assembly and association. 94% of the countries also experienced increased delays in administrative, civil or criminal proceedings.  

Experts believe that the decline in the global RoL performance during the pandemic should be a wake-up call for all countries. Bangladesh should focus more on upholding the citizens' fundamental rights and improving its civil and criminal justice delivery system to improve its performance. The current case backlog in our courts is a daunting concern, which, if not tackled now, may lead to severe consequences in future.

Event report by Ali Mashraf, Program Officer, South Asia of iProbono.