Who would have thought? We fare poorly in the Soros-funded rule of law survey

"Public trust has disappeared behind this type of propaganda material," assessed jr. Constitutional lawyer Zoltán Lomnici, spokesperson of CÖF-CÖKA, on the ranking of the rule of law scoring our country.

ranking again this year , in which very surprising results were obtained, as countries such as Rwanda, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, as well as Jordan, Mongolia and Nepal are ahead of Hungary - drew attention to Mandiner, emphasizing that there is no need to despair, because in fact the sight is only surprising at first glance, since if you enter the name of the organization in the search engine,

 we find that this would not be the first case when - to the detriment of Hungarians - a surreal picture of the world's rule of law situation is painted.

Seeing which countries are ahead of us, the question arises: how and with what methodology could this result be achieved, and how much can we trust the results of the research?

"Such and similar surveys should generally be handled in their proper place, because many mistakes can be made during data collection and processing, and if significant circumstances are ignored, the result is far from being a reflection of the real situation, as it is in the specific case this is also the situation" , said the newspaper junior. Zoltán Lomnici is a constitutional lawyer.

The scientific director of the Századvég Public Knowledge Center Foundation explained that the World Justice Project's rule of law index claims to measure the state of the rule of law worldwide, including in Hungary.

The index evaluates countries based on eight factors: limitation of government powers, lack of corruption, government transparency, fundamental rights situation, law and order, enforcement of regulations, and civil and criminal justice.

The constitutional lawyer emphasized that the legal system of our country regulates in detail the areas (see box) that the WJP examines during the evaluation of the rule of law.

"Nevertheless, in the 2024 rule of law index, Hungary ranked 73rd out of 142 examined countries. This result clearly indicates that the methodology of the WJP, which relies on more than two hundred thousand household and expert surveys (so subjective elements), does not accurately reflect the legislative framework and their practical application and is not suitable for a real assessment of the state of the rule of law in a country," he said.

Lomnici pointed out that the WJP index is based on subjective opinions, which distort the results of the ranking, so the possibility of error can be very wide.

In the past, several experts drew attention to the fact that the rule of law as a principle cannot actually be measured, so only so-called proxies, i.e. approximate data, can be evaluated.

The constitutional lawyer also drew attention to the fact that the selection of a group of experts, the data they used, the temporality, the bias based on empirical grounds towards a particular government are all existing factors, the overcoming or circumvention of which, or more precisely the absence of them, made it discredited by law in recent years, such and similar comparative research.

Who preceded us?

According to the view of the constitutional lawyer speaking to Mandiner, the age of comparative analyzes based on subjective methodology, overestimating states based on ranking or even purposefully stigmatizing them is over, and public trust has disappeared behind this type of propaganda material.

According to him, in connection with the concrete work, for example, it is worth examining the political organization and foreign policy relations of the states ranked higher in the ranking.

Lomnici pointed out: as of October 2023, about 30 percent of Ghana's public debt is financed by China. The relationship with Nigeria - the largest economic and political power in the region - is particularly negative, and the parties are confronted several times. Economic competition can be observed between them, a Nigerian minority of several hundreds of thousands in Ghana carries out partially illegal economic activities, and the extent of terror in Nigeria is also a hotbed of conflict. The African country was added to the EU's money laundering blacklist in 2019".

Japan is 14th on the list and the United Arab Emirates is 39th, while the death penalty is still a possible punishment in both countries.

- indicated Lomnici, emphasizing that, on the other hand, the death penalty has not existed in Hungary for 34 years, because the Constitutional Court, 23/1990. (X. 31.) AB declared it unconstitutional in its decision.

The constitutional lawyer also brought examples geographically closer to our country, for example, Kosovo ranked 58th on the list, even though the European Court of Auditors explained that the accession of the Western Balkans to the European Union is not progressing due to deficiencies in the rule of law.

The EU has invested a huge amount of money in this region, especially to promote the independence of the judiciary, the concentration of power and the fight against corruption. However, according to the European Court of Auditors, there has been no progress in these issues in the Western Balkans. In this case, the EU spent around 700 million euros between 2014 and 2020 for the development of six Western Balkan countries, including North Macedonia, which ranked 67th on the list.

Who would have thought that these surveys were made with Soros money?

Lomnici pointed out that political bias can also lead to the fact that the result does not correspond to reality, while at the same time the funding sources and relationships of the organizations can influence the evaluations.

The constitutional lawyer drew attention: according to the Open Society Foundations report , the World Justice Project received a total of 269,701 dollars (approximately HUF 101,860,673 at today's exchange rate) from the organization founded by György Soros in 1993.

According to Lomnici, the situation now paints a completely different picture. It becomes clear that these rankings are not to be taken seriously and do not show a real picture of the state's rule of law situation, since György Soros has always been a committed opponent of the Hungarian government's strict migration policy, which he preferred to support through his foundations. they also attack. The businessman also regularly supports the American Democratic Party, and in the last campaign, after the withdrawal of Joe Biden, he knocked on the door of Kamala Harris, who ultimately failed in the election, observed the Magyar Nemzet.

Cover photo: Facebook