Mexico underperforms in global rule of law ranking

Mexico's criminal justice system is ranked worse than that of Iran and has a lower access to justice than that of El Salvador, according to the Rule of Law Index 2017-2018 , which assesses rule of law pursuant to eight factors.

The document was prepared by the organization World Justice Project (WJP) which interviewed a thousand citizens and experts of each of the 113 countries evaluated, to define the status of their rule of law.

Mexico is one of the worst underperforming countries, currently ranked number 92 . Iran is number 80 while El Salvador number 79. Mexico's overall score was 0.45 on a scale where 1 represents a greater adherence to rule of law.

The countries with the best scores were Denmark, Norway, and Finland, ranked first, second, and third place, respectively.

The factors considered by WPJ were:

1. Constraints on government powers
2. Absence of corruption
3. Open government
4. Fundamental rights
5. Order and security
6. Regulatory enforcement
7. Civil justice
8. Criminal justice

Mexico scored the lowest in criminal justice and absence of corruption , particularly in the categories of effectiveness of the correctional system and absence of corruption in the legislature, respectively, with a score of 0.19 in both.

On a regional level, Mexico is ranked number 25 out of 30, way below countries like Argentina and Uruguay – which was ranked first in the Latin America & Caribbean region.

According to some of the members WJP's members interviewed by EL UNIVERSAL, their study is unique because they “use first-hand information to measure perception and the experience of the general public with rule of law in every-day situations.”

According to Layda Negrete, of the World Justice Project, they have a detailed assessment list for Mexico that they will release in the upcoming months, so we can learn about our opportunity areas.

For more information, you can consult the report here

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