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Tuesday, 19 October 2010

We hold the ‘Justice’ and ‘rule of law’

On October 2010, results of a three-year study of ‘good governance’ among 35 countries, was released by World Justice Project at the National Press Club in Washington DC.

The study claims that it interviewed 35,000 people and over 900 experts in 35 countries. But the results announced are motivated by political agenda and double standards. The study is expected to cover another 35 countries by 2011 and total 100 countries by 2012.

The nine variables used by the study included “limited government powers,” or checks and balances; the absence of corruption; the clarity, publication, and stability of laws; order and security; respect for fundamental rights, including the absence of discrimination; the openness and transparency of government; fairness and effectiveness of the enforcement of government regulations; access to civil justice; and the effectiveness and impartiality of the formal and informal criminal justice
United States has ranked below 9th out of the eleven developed countries in all categories except one. (Watch video below).

1. According to the report “rule of law thrives best in wealthy nations like Sweden, Netherlands, France and Austria, but is dismal in poor countries like Pakistan, Kenya and Liberia”. In reality, the governments in Sweden and Netherlands and France are known for the persecution of their Muslim minorities on religious and ethnic basis. Contrary to that, non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority (96%) Pakistan enjoy freedom of religion and are represented in Parliament, government and the Army.
Bob Woodward in his latest book, Obama’s Wars, writes how the US is destablizing Pakistan to sieze Pakistani nukes for the security of Israel.

2. The study puts United States behind those top four countries for “the absence of corruption and access to civil justice”. Interestingly, the US which is hostage to its less than 2% Jewish population and whose Justice Department has the reputation of letting Israeli terrorists and espionage agents go free, keeping torture cells in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Morocco and Eastern European countries while persecuting Muslim civilians like Pakistani Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and Canadian teen Omar Khadr and Dr. Maher Arar – is listed as having better justice than most Asian, African, Middle Eastern and South American countries.

3. The study also claimed: “Most Latin American countries have the highest crime rates in the world”. However, according to Amnesty International report in 2009 had listed United States as the home of world’ largest jail-birds (2.1% of its total population of 300 million) followed by China (1.5%). The US also has the world’s highest annual death (11,206) rate as result of robbery, domestic violence, dispute over girlfriend, suicide and racism.

4. The study puts Singapore in East Asia as the best in providing security and access to civil justice to its citizens, but ranks very low in open government, limited government powers, and fundamental rights. Japan performs well in most dimensions, but faces several challenges in access to justice. Indonesia ranks fairly high on the clarity of its laws, but poorly on corruption and access to civil justice. The Philippines falls within the bottom half of the rankings, even when compared to similarly situated countries, particularly with regard to stable laws, access to justice, and corruption.

However, the study doesn’t acknowlege that all these countries have been politically and economically controlled by the US.

The World Justice Project is a brainchild of William Horlick Neukom, the former President of American Bar Association (2007-08) and legal counsel for Microsoft for 20 years and also worked for Bill Gates father’s law firm. The study participants included Mark Agrast, a US ‘terrorist expert’ and served several US Congressmen; Thomas B. Ginsburg, a Jew professor at University of Illinois; Antara Haldar, a doctoral student at Law at Trinity College and Trence C. Halliday, American Bar Association.

“The United States probably ought to be considerably lower, then where it is. I think this report actually puts a good face on it,” remarked by US author and activist David Swanson.



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