Justice of Nicaragua among the worst in the world, according to global ranking
In La Prensa, Oct 24, 2024
World Justice Project Report assesses that the decline of justice worldwide in 2024 is due in large measures to authoritarian tendencies.
The World Justice Project, an international organization which ranks justice and the Rule of Law around the world, situates Nicaragua among the countries with the lowest score in these areas.
Nicaragua is placed at 137 among the 142 countries ranked in the entire world, which represents less justice and less application of the Rule of Law.
The Rule of Law refers to governance and the laws to which all people, institutions and public and private entities, including the State itself, are subjected.
On the regional level, Nicaragua is ranked at 30 among 32 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, once again a score which makes visible the failures of the Nicaraguan judicial system.
The injustice of the Ortega Murillo dictatorship
Under the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, the judicial branch of Nicaragua is completely subjected to the interests of the party in power, the Sandinista Front for National Liberation.
In the last two years, the Nicaraguan judicial branch has undergone its worst crisis after the intervention of the Police who removed from her post the President of the Supreme Court, and fired dozens of judges, lawyers, assistants, administrative employees and other workers in positions of trust. For critics, this meant the complete submission of this branch of the State to the Ortega Murillo dictatorship, even though the judicial branch has always acted in accordance with the party interests of the Sandinista regime. Since 2018 the judicial branch has tried dozens of opponents, accused of “betrayal of the fatherland.”
On the global level, the highest ranked country in the Rule of Law Index of the World Judicial Project of 2024 is Denmark, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden and Germany. The country with the lowest ranking is Venezuela, followed by Cambodia, Afghanistan, Haiti and Myanmar.
About the World Justice Project
The World Justice Project (WJP) is an independent and multidisciplinary organization which works to promote the Rule of Law throughout the world. For WJP “an effective Rule of Law reduces corruption, fights poverty and disease, and protects people from large and small injustices.”
This year´s study of WJP explains that “on a global level the drops are due in large extent to authoritarian tendencies.” Even so, the report explains that authoritarian tendencies slowed a little last year, nevertheless, they expanded in 2024.
WJP reflects in their report that not only judicial branches suffer over the dismantling of the Rule of Law, also civil society and the communications media have been affected by this, because human rights and public liberties have been violated, in addition to universal rights.
Not everything is negative
But not everything is negative in the WJP report. The co-founder and president of WJP, William Neukom, said that after years of decline in the Rule of Law, it could be easy to focus on the negative, “but to do so would ignore the achievements in anticorruption matters and the hard work which is done to improve justice systems on a global level.”
Measuring the Rule of Law
Each edition of the Rule of Law Index of WJP is based on more than 214,000 surveys of homes and experts to measure how the public in general from around the world experience and perceive the Rule of Law in practical and daily situations. Performance is evaluated using 44 indicators in 8 categories, each one of which is rated and classified on a global level, and in comparison with their regional and income peers: restrictions on governmental powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, Order and Security, Application of norms, civil and penal justice.
