Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2020

Abstract

The 2020 World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index ranks Canada 9th overall out of 128 countries on a composite rule of law index made up of 8 factors. In this latest version of the WJP Rule of Law Index Canada ranks 9th on constraints on government powers, 9th on absence of corruption, 9th on open government, 9th on respect for fundamental rights, 9th on order and security, 11th on regulatory enforcement, 10th on criminal justice and, much lower than the other rule of law indicators, 19th globally on civil justice. Canada’s overall score is 0.81 out of 1.00. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, rank 1 st to 5th respectively. Germany, New Zealand and Austria, in that order, also rank higher than Canada on the global index. Canada has ranked 9th globally for the past 3 years and the pattern among the components has been the same. In fact, Canada has scored consistently well over the past 10 years compared with other countries on all of the measures but one – access to civil justice. The methodology for the WJP Index is an online survey of 1,000 individuals in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver plus interviews with 18 justice specialists and other anonymous contributors.

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