Hyderabad: India ranked 79 out of 142 countries in the Rule of Law Index 2024, released by the World Justice Project (WJP), a Washington D.C.-based think tank, on October 23. Globally, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Germany stood in the top five places. The Rule of Law Index ranks the countries on eight indicators: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil Justice and criminal justice.India performed tolerably on governance indicators i.e. constraints on government powers (60/142) and open government (44/142). The governance ranks showed India’s push for better governance frameworks and also the myriad lapses, lack of coordination and intentionality in the efforts. It has put up a poor show in the protection of fundamental rights (102/142), the order and security of the people (98/142) and the efficiency of criminal justice (82/142). The sub-par policing systems, the lack of governments’ will to respect and protect the commoners’ rights and the ever-delayed criminal justice system got the country a poor score. The country’s failure to create a good business climate has been reflected in the rankings. India has performed questionably in three factors that help attract investment and nurture businesses – 97/142 rank in the absence of corruption, 78/142 rank in regulatory enforcement and 107/142 rank in civil justice delivery. To put it in perspective, Singapore, known for strict enforcement of business contracts, ranked 3/142 for both the absence of corruption and regulatory enforcement and 8/142 on civil justice delivery, with an overall global rank of 16. Within South Asia, India ranked third after Nepal (69) and Sri Lanka (75), followed by Bangladesh (127) Pakistan (129) and Afghanistan (140). Among the G7 countries, Germany topped fifth, followed by Canada (12), Japan (14), UK (15), France (22), the USA (27) and Italy (32). Venezuela got the lowest rank and placed at 142.
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