Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh has ranked 127th out of 142 nations in the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index 2024, a position it has held since 2022.
The Rule of Law Index 2024, released by the World Justice Project on Wednesday revealed that the country’s score is far below the global average of 0.55 and the South Asian average of 0.43 despite Bangladesh is one of the few countries to experience a less than 3 percent increase in its overall rule of law score.
Bangladesh’s overall score is 0.39 in 2024 which was 0.38 in the previous year.
Among the South Asian region, the top performer is Nepal (ranked 69th out of 142 globally), followed by Sri Lanka (75th)and India (79th).
Bangladesh’s rule of law remained only better than Pakistan (129th) and Afghanistan (140th), ranking 4th out of 6 countries in South Asia since 2016, the report showed.
Additionally, amidstlower-middle income countries, Bangladesh ranks 28th out of 38.
The World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index is the leading source of independent data on the rule of law, covering 142 countries. It uses over 214,000 household surveys and 3,500 expert surveys to assess global perceptions and experiences of the rule of law.
For the seventh year in a row, the rule of law has eroded in a majority of countries, according to WJP Rule of Law Index.
Each country’s score is an average of eight factors: Constraints on Government Powers, Absence of Corruption, Open Government, Fundamental Rights, Order and Security, Regulatory Enforcement, Civil Justice, and Criminal Justice.
Globally, the top-ranked country in the 2024 WJP Rule of Law Index is Denmark, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Germany.
By contrast, the country with the lowest score is Venezuela, followed by Cambodia, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Myanmar.