– says outdated data compiled by unknown entity
The government yesterday rejected the World Justice Project’s 2025 Rule of Law Index which ranked this country as 80th in the world, questioning not only the accuracy of the aged data but the circumstances under which it was compiled.
“Guyana notes its ranking in the 2025 Index (80th in the 2025 report, down from 78th in 2024 report) and reiterates the importance of transparent and methodologically sound assessments. The 2025 report, without question, relies on older datasets including household polling data which originates from 2018 and 2022 by the StatMark Group. Of note, neither of these face-to-face surveys were ever made public at the time nor does the public know of the StatMark Group,” a statement from the government through the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs yesterday said.
“By its own admission, the report states ‘where rule of law is stronger, so is the economy’. Guyana, as one of the fastest growing economies, is a living example of this. The report, therefore, cannot be construed as a real reflection of Guyana’s 2025 realities, particularly given ongoing institutional and legislative reforms across governance and justice sectors after 2022, and certainly since 2018,” it added.
The Washington DC headquartered international civil society organization recently released its 2025 World Justice Project Rule of Law Index and gave Guyana a ranking of 80th out of 143 countries, down by 2 points from its 78th rank in 2024. Scores range from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating the strongest adherence to the rule of law. (https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/WJPIndex2025.pdf)
The top three countries are, respectively, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
On the lowest end of the ranking were Venezuela, Afghanistan and Cambodia.
The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance raised strong concerns as it acknowledged the publication of the report, saying that it noted the continued efforts of a number of international agencies to assess global governance, anti-corruption, and human rights performance.
Guyana values mechanisms that facilitate such comparative reviews, according to the ministry, and it takes cognisance of the findings of notable organizations as they complement the state’s own ongoing commitments under international frameworks. Organisations and bodies singled out included the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the Inter-American Convention against Corruption through the MESICIC, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), the International Monetary Fund Article IV, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, UN Human Rights Council, UN treaty bodies and other development partners.
However, the government questioned this report which was compiled by a company or organization it knows nothing about called the Statmark Group.
On its website, the Statmark Group states that it is “a full service market research agency with offices in Venezuela and Florida. We cover all countries in Latin America through a network of longstanding research associates.
“Market conditions within our region have provided us with strong exposure to a broad range of categories and methodologies, thus positioning us more as generalists than specialists within our field. We have built strong expertise in Healthcare, Customer Experience Monitoring, Public Opinion, Automotive, Financial Services, Media, Home Appliances, Beauty and Personal Care sectors, among others. Through our knowledge of regional differences within Latin America, we provide insight into societal and market conditions with potential impact on our clients’ research findings.”
The government said that before publishing reports it is encouraging the media and public to consult “official data sources and exercise critical review when interpreting or reproducing third-party publications, particularly in this case where the data being used is as old as seven years ago.
“While these rankings such as in the WJP 2025 Rule of Law Index 2025 may provide attractive sound bites for some, on closer examination, they do not independently reflect progress unless accompanied by nominal scores and underlying datasets. The absence of detailed nominal values for the sub-factors limits the analytical value of the rankings, especially in the context of informing policy application and public understanding.”
And with the report attributing its findings to expert perceptions and anonymous sources, except for two people, the government said this too created doubt about the reliability of the information as there was no way to verify if they were indeed experts.
“It is unclear how these ‘experts’ were identified and how the perceptions of those experts were validated in 2025, if at all, especially since it is evident that the contributors, except for two individuals, requested anonymity,” the government stressed.
“It cannot be that the perceptions of a few anonymous people are considered representative of the entire population of approximately 800,000. Without more rigorous sampling parameters, it is indeed difficult to validate the robustness or representativeness of the findings.”
The government said that it remained open to continued engagement with international partners and other monitoring mechanisms, as evidenced in the two large scale reviews undertaken just this year through the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and the United Nations Universal Periodic Review.
“However, the government continues to underscore the necessity for continuous scrutiny of methodologies, transparent disclosure of sample sizes, and the timely updating of datasets to ensure that global indices accurately portray current conditions, particularly for countries in the global south,” it said.
“The use of outdated data from 2018 and 2022 must not be misconstrued as depicting Guyana’s 2025 governance environment,” it added.
