In 2015, the World Justice Project (WJP) issued its annual Rule of Law Index measuring rule of law in 102 countries. In this snapshot we use their index to look at “timely and effective adjudication of criminal justice,” or the time from arrest until a judicial decision is made regarding the charges against the accused.
The countries are scored on a scale from 0 to 1, with 0 indicating an indefinite delay in the application of justice and 1 indicating a speedy and efficient resolution of charges. These scores are calculated by WJP based on surveys conducted in the three largest cities of each country and surveys of in-country practitioners and academics with expertise in criminal justice.
Nineteen countries from the Americas are included in this year’s global index. The highest scorers are: the United States and Canada (tied at 0.68); Chile (0.57); Nicaragua (0.52); and the Dominican Republic (0.45). At the other end of the spectrum, those Latin American countries that score worst are: Peru (0.23); Honduras (0.19); Bolivia (0.16); and Venezuela (0.13).
Perhaps the most surprising of the scores included here are the relatively high scores for Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, two countries much poorer than other, more developed, countries in the region, such as Uruguay and Argentina which rank lower.
Among those scoring worst, Venezuela, especially given its ongoing crisis and institutional meltdown, is no surprise. Those countries scoring lowest in this index suffer from unreasonably long delays between arrest and court decisions, meaning the jails are overcrowded with many stuck in pre-trial detention, not yet convicted of any crimes, but suffering longer and longer periods of injustice as they wait for their turn in court.