ISLAMABAD: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remained best performer in provincial rule of law index while Punjab close behind, revealed a survey report issued by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat).
Pildat conducted this survey in all the four provinces interviewing 2,000 adult men and women and 38 experts. Titled as the Pakistan Justice Report, Pildat report compares how public opines and views rule of law across Pakistan’s four provinces.
The survey was conduct over three different levels like general public rule of law index, expert rule of law index and a combined rule of law index based on aggregation of index 1 and 2 on a parity. According to the survey report, the KP government stood first, Punjab second, Balochistan third and Sindh at the lowest fourth position in the combined rule of law index.
The situation is a bit different when it comes to expert opinion where Punjab is first and KP second. As per report, KP stands first in six out of eight indices, and second in another two indices.
With a 0.84 score, Punjab is at the top in “order and security” while the province of Balochistan with 0.22 at the lowest. The report says that Punjab comes second in all the indices except one - law and order while police performance gets the worst rating.
Pildat report says that Pakistan was ranked on 98th position among 102 countries at World Justice Project (WJP) index that covers data of 102 countries at its rule of law index in 2015. The WJP for 2015 study had collected data from 1,000 respondents in three cities of Pakistan and engaged 18 experts. Whereas, Pildat in its provincial rule of law index has covered both urban and rural population of all the four provinces with a sample of 2,000 respondents and engaged 38 experts.
An aggregate of the results of a perception survey of the general public and technical experts ranked KP at the top with an overall score of 0.63.
KP is followed by Punjab at the second rank with an overall score of 0.58. The province of Balochistan is placed on the third position with an overall score of 0.40.
The bottom ranked province, according to this combine rule of law index, is Sindh with an overall score of 0.38. The overall rule of law index score is built on eight factors including, constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice.
These eight factors of rule of law were further divided into 44 sub-factors with each factor has, on average, 5-6 sub-factors. The provincial rule of law index of Pakistan 2016 is prepared and published by Pildat under the project of Strengthening Rule of Law in Pakistan, supported by Development Alternative Inc (DAI) under the Enhanced Democratic Accountability and Civic Engagement (EDACE) Project.