Botswana corruption score drops
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday February 5, 2024 07:13
In 2012, the country scored 65 and has never been able to beat that, rather dwindling to as low as 55/100 in 2021.
Botswana would improve by five scores to 60/100 in 2022 only to drop by a single score in 2023. According to a report released on Tuesday, there has been a global decline in justice and the rule of law since 2016. The report states that the rise of authoritarianism in some countries contributes to this trend, and even in democratic contexts, the mechanisms that keep governments in check have weakened. “Governments across the political spectrum have undermined justice systems, restricted civic freedoms and relied on non-democratic strategies to address recent challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Against this backdrop, this year’s CPI shows that only 28 of the 180 countries measured by this index have improved their corruption levels over the last 12 years, and 34 countries have significantly worsened. Despite progress made across the planet in criminalising corruption and establishing specialised institutions to address it, corruption levels remain stagnant globally,” reads the report. This comes at the time Botswana attorneys are up in arms for amongst other things, independence of the judiciary. Through the aw Society of Botswana, attorneys have voted to boycott the opening of the legal year. In their own words, “the image of the judiciary, and the public confidence in this arm of the State are at an all time low with applications by judges being filed against the Chief Justice, allegations of judges receiving bribes from parties and some judges writing judgments for others.
It is truly a deplorable situation, and we believe it is time for the Law Society to take strong steps to express our displeasure with the status quo of the Administration of Justice for the good of the institution and the public that it serves”. This according to the report, is hardly surprising considering the chronic weaknesses of justice systems meant to detect, investigate, prosecute and adjudicate corruption cases. “Ongoing under resourcing of the judiciary, the police and other justice institutions, combined with insufficient levels of independence from other branches of government, mean that corruption often goes unpunished. In turn, extensive impunity incentivises further wrongdoing at all levels. This ranges from bribery to embezzlement to the organised, complex schemes of grand corruption, which is the abuse of high-level power that causes serious and widespread suffering in societies,” reads the report.
The report further states that grave societal harm caused by grand corruption makes it a matter of international concern. Grand corruption perpetrators too often benefit from impunity, due to domestic justice systems being “unable or unwilling” to pursue them, whether because of capture, interference or lack of powers, resources and capacity.
“Those abusing power escape accountability and the widespread harm to victims goes unremedied. The fight for justice and the fight against corruption go hand in hand: where the justice system is unable to uphold the rule of law, corruption thrives. At the same time, where corruption is the norm, access to justice is often hindered for the most vulnerable, and justice institutions may be captured by political, economic or special interest groups. In the most extreme cases, patronage and clientelist networks, many of which transcend national borders, can also use their influence to create impunity for themselves by manipulating legal processes, pushing for selective enforcement, and even altering laws to ensure they are in line with their interests,” the researchers found.
Long way to go for Sub-Saharan Africa
This year’s CPI shows mixed results in Africa, with significant improvements in a few countries. However, most African countries experienced stagnation, maintaining the region’s consistently poor performance, with an unaltered regional average score of 33 out of 100. Ninety percent of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa scored under 50. “Despite a regional survey ranking corruption among the most important problems that Africans want their governments to address, the 2023 CPI shows that countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have a long way to go in their fight against corruption.
The region’s persistent challenges stem from decades of severe underfunding in public sectors, exacerbated by corruption and illicit financial flows siphoning resources away from basic public services. Addressing social and economic issues remains ineffective, often at the expense of the most vulnerable population,” states the report. It is further stated that corruption in justice delivery mechanisms disproportionately affects the poorest citizens and those who depend primarily on public services, such as people living with disabilities or women and children, hindering the realisation of global and regional development goals.
“Despite adopting the African Union Convention on Prevention and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC) two decades ago, impunity of public actors, a weakened civic space and public access to justice and information continue to be critical issues that threaten the rule of law in the region. Anti-corruption efforts are therefore necessary at all levels and by multiple stakeholders within the justice network,” states the report. Recommendations The researchers suggest that governments seeking to tackle corruption, promote justice and strengthen the rule of law should: Strengthen the independence of the justice system, promoting merit based rather than political appointments and ensure that the system has qualified personnel and is properly resourced; Introduce integrity and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the special protections required by members of the justice system to perform their functions are not abused; Improve access to justice by simplifying complex procedures, making legal procedures accessible to all, widening the definition of victims of corruption to include non-state victims and granting qualified civil society organisations (CSOs) the right to initiate and bring forward cases of corruption whether criminal, civil or administrative and represent the interests of victims of corruption; Make justice more transparent to ensure that relevant data on judgments, out-of court settlements and enforcement as well as legal procedure and administrative rules are openly available and can be scrutinised by members of the public; Expand avenues for accountability in grand corruption cases. Where grand corruption schemes are carried out in countries with justice systems that are “unwilling or unable” to enforce against the offenders, justice institutions in foreign jurisdictions with stronger rule of law can play a crucial role in countering impunity by handling the grand corruption proceedings; and promote cooperation within the justice systems.
The ranking
The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public-sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople. It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. Countries with strong rule of law and well-functioning democratic institutions often sit at the top of the index. Democratic countries tend to greatly outperform authoritarian regimes when controlling corruption – full democracies have a CPI average of 73, flawed democracies have one of 48 and non-democratic regimes just 32. For the sixth year in a row, Denmark heads the ranking, with a score of 90. Finland and New Zealand follow closely with scores of 87 and 85, respectively. Norway (84), Singapore (83), Sweden (82), Switzerland (82), the Netherlands (79), Germany (78) and Luxembourg (78) complete the top 10 this year. Meanwhile, countries experiencing conflict or with highly restricted freedoms and weak democratic institutions tend to score worst. This year, Somalia (11), Venezuela (13), Syria (13) and South Sudan (13) are at the bottom of the index. Yemen (16), Nicaragua (17), North Korea (17), Haiti (17), Equatorial Guinea (17), Turkmenistan (18) and Libya (18) are the next lowest performers.