Estonia has scored 14th in a global rule of law index, compiled by the World Justice Project, an organisation working to advance the rule of law around the world.
Estonia scored 0.79 in the index where the scores range from 0 to 1 – with 1 indicating the strongest adherence to the rule of law. With this score, Estonia’s adherence to the rule of law is at the same level as Belgium’s.
Compared with the last year, Estonia’s ranking has improved by one place.
The strongest adherence to the rule of law in the world is in Denmark (0.89), followed by Norway (0.88) and Finland (0.87).
Estonia’s southern neighbours of Latvia and Lithuania are not represented in the index. Russia, however, scored 92nd with the score of 0.44.
The index presents a portrait of the rule of law in each country by providing scores and rankings organised around eight themes: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, and criminal justice. A ninth factor, informal justice, is measured but not included in aggregated scores and rankings.
“The WJP Rule of Law Index seeks to embody these outcomes within a simple and coherent framework to measure the extent to which countries attain these outcomes in practice by means of performance indicators,” the report says.
According to the report, these country scores and rankings are based on answers drawn from more than 110,000 households and 2,700 expert surveys in 113 countries and jurisdictions.
The World Justice Project is an independent, multidisciplinary organisation working to advance the rule of law around the world.
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The cover image is illustrative (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
