Justice report

How does Pakistan do in terms of the provision of justice to its citizens? Most Pakistanis would answer in quite negative terms. This has been confirmed by a report by the World Justice Project, an independent organisation based in the US. The report ranks Pakistan at 105 out of 113 countries worldwide in terms of the country’s adherence to rule of law. The report further indicates that Pakistanis are the least protected against terrorism and armed conflict. All else aside, there should be some healthy scepticism about a report that ranks countries according to a Rule of Law Index that it has designed itself. Unlike indicators such as the GINI coefficient, this is not a universally recognised index. It is also hard to take a quantitative index and make substantive claims about Pakistan’s justice system. The claim that Pakistan ranks worse than let’s say Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Myanmar or the Democratic Republic of Congo in terms of protection against terrorism, is hard to buy.

The good news is that Pakistan is among a small number of middle-income countries where the delivery of justice is improving. The top positions in the report are occupied by Scandinavian countries followed by a number of European countries. This is not a surprise, but one would like such reports to offer a more substantive critique of the shortcomings of Western justice systems, which have had serious issues in recent years. The report itself is more interesting in the details. For example, it ranks Pakistan poorly in terms of sanctioning government officials for misconduct. This is not surprising but one would wonder how the report has dealt with Nawaz Sharif’s dismissal and the continued paradox of plea bargains in the country. There are bigger concerns about how human rights violations by law-enforcement officials in Pakistan, such as torture and extrajudicial killings, are not punished. Pakistan does poorly in terms of both corruption and open government – again, not much of a surprise, given that right to information laws remain weak in the country. Pakistan also does poorly on fundamental rights, including labour rights, right to life and security, as well as privacy and due process. The report leaves serious questions for Pakistan’s policymakers to address by identifying key areas of concern. One would hope that some of its findings can make their way into legal and governance reforms.