Cyprus ranked 18th out of 140 countries for adherence to rule of law

Cyprus has been ranked 18 out of 140 countries for 2022 in the World Justice Report, which measures the adherence to the rule of law in states across the globe.

The country jumped two spaces in comparison to last year, when it ranked 20^th overall.

The results showed that in the case of civil lawsuits Cyprus scored lower than the previous year to delays by courts in ruling on cases brought before them.

In this category, Cyprus was ranked 38th compared to 36th in 2021, ranking very low in comparison. However the remainder of the indicators are at a satisfactory level, according to the indicators.

Cyprus scored 12 points below average at 0.6 in the category open government according to the report.

This section of the report measures the openness of government defined by the extent to which a government shares information, empowers people with tools to hold the government accountable, and fosters citizen participation in public policy deliberations.

Cyprus was ranked 39^th out of the 140 countries and a dozen points lower than the regional average, which was 0.72

In terms corruption, the survey scores the executive branch at 0.65 (with a top score for leas corruption being 1.0. The judiciary scored 0.9, the police/military at 0.75 and the legislative branch at 0.41.

Results for the report were only released for the government-controlled areas, as data was not collected in the north.

The World Justice Project, which compiles the report showed a truncated map of Cyprus on its webpage accompanying the text that only had the outline of the government-controlled areas and not the entire island as it is internationally recognised.

The Cyprus Mail was awaiting a response from the WJR about the map.