Rule of law deteriorates in Bangladesh, shows WJP index

Bangladesh ranked 115th in the Rule of Law Index 2020 released by the World Justice Project on Wednesday, slipping two notches from its previous standing.

The Rule of Law Index 2020 of the World Justice Project, an international civil society organisation with the stated mission of ‘working to advance the rule of law around the world’, presented information on eight composite factors that are further disaggregated into 44 specific sub-factors.

Right activists agreed with the report and said if the current situation was described the position of Bangladesh could worsen further. 

The scores and rankings of countries presented in this report are based on more than 500 variables drawn from the assessments of more than 130,000 households and 4,000 legal practitioners and experts in 128 countries and jurisdictions, the report stated in the introduction.

Bangladesh’s score places it at 4 out of 6 countries in the South Asia region and 21 out of 30 among lower-middle-income countries.

South Asia’s top performer in the index is Nepal, 61th in 128 countries globally, followed by Sri Lanka ranked 66th and India 69th. The three countries with the lowest scores in the region were Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as they ranked 115th, 120th and 122th among 128 countries.

The top three overall performers in the WJP Rule of Law Index 2020 were Denmark, Norway and Finland respectively while the bottom three countries were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia and Venezuela respectively.

Both the law minister, Asinul Huq, and home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, could not be reached for their comments until Wednesday night.

Ain O Salish Kendra executive director Sheepa Hafiza said the report reflected the reality in Bangladesh. ‘We are concerned over the country’s fundamental rights due to weak governance and the state of impunity, among others,’ she added.

Odhikar secretary Adilur Rahman Khan said the report reflected the actual situation as the justice delivery system of the country was on verge of collapse. ‘Demand for justice is high in Bangladesh,’ he added.

Dhaka University law teacher Mizanur Rahman,  also the former National Human Rights Commission chairman, said that had the report been prepared now, the country would have been at the bottom of the list due to the latest incident in Pirojpur.

On March 3, Pirojpur district and session judge Abdul Mannan was transferred and attached to the law ministry and four hours later joint district and sessions judge Nahid Nasrin was made the acting district and sessions judge and immediately granted bails to former ruling Awami League lawmaker AKMA Awal and his wife in three corruption cases.

Mizanur Rahman said that the human rights issues were being subordinated to the development the country was witnessing. Unfortunately, a form of authoritarianism was thriving and there was a totally absence of rule of law in the country, he added.

Shahdeen Malik, a lawyer and an advisor to the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, said he needed to read full report to make comments on it.

In the index, one of the factors recognises that a system of positive law that fails to respect core human rights established under international law is at best ‘rule by law’, and does not deserve to be called a rule of law, which was durable system.

In the section, Bangladesh performed weakest and took position 122 of 128 countries.

Another factor measured how well a society ensures the security of persons and property. Security is one of the defining aspects of any rule of law society and is a fundamental function of the state. 

Bangladesh took 103rd position among the countries.

The seventh factor measures whether ordinary people can resolve their grievances peacefully and effectively through the civil justice system. In this factor, Bangladesh took 119th position among the countries.  The Factor 8 evaluates a country’s criminal justice system while Bangladesh ranked 104 among the countries.

The report stated that some 1,000 Bangladeshi were interviewed ‘face-to-face’ in Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna by the research firm, Org-Quest Research Ltd. In the 2019 report, Bangladesh ranked 112th among 126 countries.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net