A Washington-based non-profit has ranked Ethiopia among the lowest in the world for its adherence to the rule of law.<\/p>\n
The 2025 Rule of Law Index published by the World Justice Project (WJP) ranks Ethiopia 132nd out of 143 nations globally and highlights what it describes as a \u201crule of law recession\u201d that has seen more than two-thirds of countries on the list exhibit a judicial decline over the past year.<\/p>\n
WSJ, founded in 2006 under the American Bar Association, reports that Ethiopia\u2019s overall rule of law score decreased by 2.4 percent in this year\u2019s index. Regionally, it fared only slightly better, ranking 30th out of 34 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
The data reveals a particularly troubling performance in several areas, including the fundamental rights and \u2018open government\u2019 categories, in which Ethiopia ranks near bottom.<\/p>\n
The report directly links these declines to \u201ca worldwide expansion of authoritarian trends\u201d and cites \u201cshrinking civic space\u201d as a key characteristic of the regression.<\/p>\n
The non-profit found that Ethiopia is among the over 70 percent of countries where crucial freedoms have eroded.<\/p>\n
\u201cFreedom of opinion and expression declined in 73 percent of countries, including Ethiopia,\u201d with similar regressions noted for freedom of assembly and civic participation, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn expansion of authoritarian trends is the primary force behind the rule of law recession, with deep declines in factors measuring constraints on government powers, open government, and fundamental rights,\u201d reads the WJP report.<\/p>\n
The integrity of checks and balances has also been seriously weakened, according to the organization.<\/p>\n
It highlights that judiciaries are losing ground to executive overreach, with rising political interference across justice systems, a trend that includes Ethiopia. More broadly, according to the report, civil justice weakened in 68 percent of countries, reflecting longer delays and greater government interference.<\/p>\n
Globally, the top-ranked countries are Denmark, Norway, and Finland, while Venezuela sits at the bottom. The findings underscore a heightened risk to democracy worldwide, with Ethiopia’s rankings illustrating the profound challenges it faces in upholding the rule of law for its citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Washington-based non-profit has ranked Ethiopia among the lowest in the world for its adherence to the rule of law. The 2025 Rule of Law Index published by the World Justice Project (WJP) ranks Ethiopia 132nd out of 143 nations globally and highlights what it describes as a \u201crule of law recession\u201d that has seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":47606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1960,13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-47605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news-in-ethiopia","8":"category-latest-ethiopian-political-news"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thereporterethiopia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}