Venezuela Justice System Among The Worst In The World: NGO

http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/venezuela-justice-system-among-worst-in-the-world-ngo


Venezuela, El Salvador, and Bolivia have come out at the bottom in an NGO's ranking of criminal justice systems around the world, indicative of the major challenges facing judicial reform in Latin America.

EmailPrint A rule of law index created by World Justice Project assigned a score to 97 countries, basing their assessment on several factors related to the rule of law, including absence of corruption, access to fundamental rights, and the limiting of government powers.

The index also judged the effectiveness of a country's criminal justice system, looking at the judiciary's impartiality, vulnerability to corruption, and several other categories. Venezuela, El Salvador, and Bolivia scored badly on all counts -- Venezuela and El Salvador ranked particularly poorly in terms of impartiality in the justice system; while Bolivia received an abysmal score related to corruption.

Venezuelan lawyer and human rights activist Alfredo Romero said that the rankings must be paid attention to, "because as long as we don't have a trustworthy government that respects the rule of law, we can't talk about civil liberties or human rights," as Venezuelan newspaper El Universal reported.