The World Justice Project (WJP) has published its annual rule of law ranking for 2024. The report gave Hungary an extremely low score in 2021 and 2022, which undermines its credibility, especially as Hungary has been ranked lower than countries like Botswana. This is not an insult to the African state, but it is rather absurd to rank a European democracy behind it.
The pattern remains unchanged this year: according to the WJP, Hungary has a worse rule of law situation than countries such as Rwanda, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Jordan, Mongolia, and Nepal. Hungary ranked 73rd out of the 142 countries surveyed.
Biased Methodology
The WJP Rule of Law Index claims to measure the state of the rule of law worldwide, including in Hungary. The index evaluates countries based on eight factors: limits on government powers, absence of corruption, government transparency, fundamental rights, order and security, enforcement of regulations, and civil and criminal justice.
However, these factors are not based on objective elements—such as the analysis of the legal system and constitution of a country—but on subjective ones: a survey of more than 200,000 households and experts. This may explain why, although the Hungarian legal system regulates the areas under study in detail, the WJP index ranks Hungary’s democracy lower than, for example, that of Ghana or Botswana.
‘These factors are not based on objective elements—such as the analysis of the legal system and constitution of a country—but on subjective ones’
‘This result clearly indicates that the WJP methodology does not accurately reflect the legal framework or its practical application and is unsuitable for a genuine assessment of the rule of law situation in a country,’ constitutional lawyer Zoltán Lomnici Jr pointed out in an interview with Mandiner.
The article provides an in-depth analysis of this year’s report, in which Lomnici notes that ‘several experts have previously pointed out that the rule of law as a principle cannot truly be measured, and therefore only so-called proxies (approximate data) can be assessed. The selection of experts, the data they use, the temporality, and the empirical bias against a government are all factors that have influenced the results. The failure to address or circumvent these factors, or more precisely the lack of such efforts, has inevitably discredited comparative research of this report and similar ones in recent years.’
Ahead of Hungary: Ghana, UAE, Kosovo
This is clearly demonstrated by a random examination of some of the states that ranked higher than Hungary. Let’s start with Ghana. As Lomnici explained: ‘As of October 2023, about 30 per cent of Ghana’s public debt is financed by China. Relations with Nigeria, the largest economic and political power in the region, are notably negative, marked by repeated confrontations between the two parties. There is economic rivalry between them, with a Nigerian minority of several hundred thousand people in Ghana engaged in partly illegal economic activities. Additionally, the spread of terrorism in Nigeria is also a major source of conflict. The African country was added to the EU’s money laundering blacklist in 2019.’
Japan ranked 14th, and the United Arab Emirates 39th, yet both countries still have the death penalty as a possible punishment. In the case of the UAE, the death penalty can even be imposed for homosexuality. Hungary, on the other hand, abolished the death penalty in 1990.
Furthermore, Kosovo is also ranked higher than Hungary. The Balkan country has struggled to progress further along the path of European integration, partly due to concerns in Brussels regarding the rule of law.
Soros’ Influence
A closer look at the background of the WJP reveals who has an interest in portraying Hungary in a negative light. The organization has received a total of $269,701 over two years from the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which was founded in 1993 by George Soros, a Hungarian-born American billionaire. Soros is a staunch opponent of the Hungarian government’s strict migration policy and has long targeted Hungary through his network of NGOs. Soros and the Hungarian government have clashed on another fronts, most recently on the issue of the war in Ukraine. Soros’s son, Alexander Soros, who now heads his father’s empire, has significant interests in Ukraine, which he understandably does not want to fall under Russian control. As a result, the Soros empire is fully in favour of continuing the war in Ukraine, in contrast to the Hungarian government’s committed pro-peace stance.
‘Soros is a staunch opponent of the Hungarian government’s strict migration policy and has long targeted Hungary through his network of NGOs’
After all, there is no need for concern: Hungarian democracy is far from being as poor as the WJP index and similar reports suggest. A similar situation arises, for instance, with the annual rule of law reports published by the European Commission. The globalist mainstream often uses them as a tool of political pressure against states that prioritize their sovereignty. However, on 5 November, not only the Democratic Party but also these interest groups with numerous ties to it suffered a significant defeat in the US elections, which offers hope to nations like Hungary.
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