LAHORE - Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) has expressed concern at the country’s low ranking-106 or 7th from the bottom - as revealed by a Washington-based World Justice Project (WJP) report released on comparative Rule of Law of 113 countries.

Pakistan may derive some comfort at the slight improvement in its rank which was 98th out of 102 countries in 2015. However, it shows a considerable deterioration since 2014 when Pakistan ranked 73rd out of 99 countries, Pildat said in a statement on Friday.

Pildat commentary on WJP report also noted that Pakistan’s score in 2016 remained stagnant at 0.38 since 2015 which records deterioration from 0.46 in 2014. It also pointed out low performance of Pakistan under various parameters among the Saarc countries.

Pakistan ranks the lowest among six Saarc countries when it comes to the likelihood of prosecution and punishment of a high ranking government official embezzling public funds. The chances of prosecution and punishment of a corrupt official in Pakistan is a poor 18 per cent compared to 19 per cent in India, 24 per cent in Afghanistan, 42 per cent in Sri Lanka, 45 per cent in Bangladesh and 49 per cent in Nepal.

Among the five major urban centres in Pakistan, likelihood of prosecuting and punishing a corrupt government official is the highest in Lahore (23 per cent) which means the most positive perception of accountability in the country.

Pildat also highlighted that a high per centage (78%) of the population paid bribe to process government permit and 74% bribed the police, according to the WJP report. “As compared to South Asian peer countries, more Pakistanis report paying a bribe to process government permits and to receive assistance from the police’ states the WJP report on Pakistan. Just over 40 per cent Pakistanis experienced a dispute in the past 12 months,” the report reads.

Pildat has asked political leadership to pay heed to the key finding that Pakistanis consider corruption to be the most important issue facing the country.

As per the report, 27% cited reducing corruption followed by reducing crime (26%) and reducing poverty (23%).

WJP has been producing annual Rule of Law Index Reports since 2011. These reports measure Rule of Law based on the experiences and perceptions of the general public and in-country experts worldwide. Pildat, using the adapted methodology of WJP, had developed a Provincial Rule of Law Index for Pakistan in 2016 on the basis of which it ranked Khyber PK akhtunkhwa one in General Public Rule of Law Index and Punjab topped in the Experts Rule of Law Index.