EDITORIAL: Most common Pakistanis have become so used to the corruption of the elite, especially elite institutions, that they would not have noticed what Transparency International (TI) reported in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2023 — that Pakistan’s ranking improved by seven points over the previous year, from 140 to 133 out of 180 countries. That, according to the report, means that anti-corruption efforts by different pillars of the state have produced positive results. But the breakdown is more revealing.
CPI ranks countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero, which means highly corrupt, to 100, meaning very clean. And despite the seven-point jump in the final ranking of countries and territories, Pakistan’s CPI score only rose two points from 27 to 29, which means it still languishes around the unimpressive quarter (25 point) mark.
The second point is more important. The Berlin-based corruption watchdog also regularly calls on governments to give their justice systems “independence, resources and transparency needed to effectively punish all corruption offences and provide checks and balances on power”.
That’s because, not surprisingly, the parallel Rule of Law Index confirms that countries with the lowest points in it also score very poorly on the CPI, implying a “clear connection between access to justice and corruption”. Indeed, the top three countries on the CPI index — Denmark, Finland and New Zealand — have some of the best functioning justice systems and are also among the top scorers in the Rule of Law Index.
Yet if the past is anything to go by, most of Pakistan’s political elite will milk this report for political purposes only, especially this close to the election, and simply refuse to learn the right lessons from it. That’s why you can expect PML-N, which led the ruling PDM government in 2023 — when Pakistan’s CPI score improved — to wave this as a badge of honour in its last few campaign rallies.
There’s also the fact that this report talks about last year, whereas the judiciary has courted fresh controversy in the new one. Especially now, with PTI complaining about lack of due process for its senior leadership, especially founding chairman Imran Khan, there’s every reason to expect Pakistan to drop once again in both the Rule of Law Index and CPI when the next report comes out.
No doubt the most important takeaway from this report is the need for improving the justice delivery system if corruption is to be reduced. We didn’t need TI to break this down for us, of course, but systematic, data-driven evidence helps drive in the point in a more effective way.
It is now for the people that run this country’s most important institutions and pillars to create the right conditions for a more effective and efficient legal system. Otherwise the common folk will continue to bear the brunt of their leaders’ negligence and, indeed, corruption.
The chair of TI said it best: “When justice is bought or politically interfered with, it is the people who suffer”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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