Bangladesh ranked 127th out of 140 countries on the Rule of Law Index 2022, slipping two positions from last year.
This year, Bangladesh scored 0.39 out of 1, where 1 indicates the strongest adherence to the rule of law. Last year, the country's score was 0.40.
The country's score placed it at the fourth spot out of six countries assessed in South Asia, according to the 2022 World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index released on Wednesday (October 26, 2022).
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Nepal was the top performer in the region with a global ranking of 69, followed by Sri Lanka at 74 and India at 77.
Bangladesh, Pakistan (129 globally), and Afghanistan (138th globally) had the lowest scores in South Asia.
Globally, Denmark, Norway, and Finland topped the WJP Rule of Law index. Venezuela, Cambodia, and Afghanistan had the lowest overall scores.
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For the fifth consecutive year, the rule of law weakened in more countries than those in which it improved (85 versus 54, with one unchanged). More than 4.4 billion people live in countries where the rule of law weakened in the past year. This is equivalent to 56 percent of the world's population.
According to the accompanying report, the continued deterioration of the rule of law this year can be explained by three factors: a weakening in constraints on government powers; an erosion in fundamental rights, caused by growing authoritarianism and the shrinking of civic space; and the deterioration of civil justice, mainly due to increasing discrimination, delays in proceedings, and the weakening of enforcement mechanisms.
The Index presents a portrait of the rule of law in 140 countries and jurisdictions by providing scores and rankings based on eight factors: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, and criminal justice.
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The WJP Rule of Law Index 2022 is the latest report in an annual series measuring the rule of law based on global surveys of more than 154,000 households and 3,600 legal practitioners and experts. The period of data collection for the 2022 data was February 2022 through June 2022.