The Government of Guyana has rejected the latest Rule of Law Index Report by the World Justice Project contending that the report used “old” and “outdated” data and is not a true reflection of Guyana’s 2025 realities. 

Guyana ranked 80 out of 143 countries in the Rule of Law Index – down from 78 in 2024.

Guyana’s overall Rule of Law score decreased by less than 1% in this year’s Index, but the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance shot down the report today and underscored the need for transparent and methodologically sound assessments.

The Ministry said while Guyana values mechanisms that facilitate such comparative reviews, it would appear that the Index Report, particularly in the case of Guyana, was compiled using outdated information.

The Ministry contends that the 2025 report relies on older data sets including a household polling data which originates from 2018 and 2022 by the StatMark Group. It said neither of these face-to-face surveys were ever made public at the time nor does the public know of the StatMark Group.

The Governance Ministry said by its own admission, the report states that “where rule of law is stronger, so is the economy.”

It said Guyana, as one of the fastest growing economies, is a living example of a country with a strong rule of law.

The Ministry said the report therefore cannot be construed as a real reflection of Guyana’s 2025 realities.

In this regard, it advised against interpreting or reproducing third-party publications, particularly in cases where the data being used is as old as seven years ago.

“While these rankings such as in the WJP 2025 Rule of Law Index 2025 may provide attractive sound bites for some, on closer examination, they do not independently reflect progress unless accompanied by nominal scores and underlying datasets. The absence of detailed nominal values for the sub-factors limits the analytical value of the rankings, especially in the context of informing policy application and public understanding,” the ministry said.

It said while the report references to expert perceptions, it is unclear how these “experts” were identified and how the perceptions of those experts were validated in 2025.

According to the Governance Ministry, Guyana remains open to continued engagement with international partners and other monitoring mechanisms, as was evident in the two large scale reviews undertaken earlier this year through the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

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