Philippines has worst impunity problem – study

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has earned the dubious distinction of having the worst record in bringing wrongdoers to justice, according to a study of countries plagued by impunity.

The country topped the list of 59 countries included in the first World Impunity Index drawn up by the Impunity and Justice Research Center of the Universidad de las Americas, a private university in Puebla, Mexico.

The Index, released over the weekend, has created great social impact in Mexico, which has been suffering from years of criminal violence aggravated by a corrupt security and justice system, and ranked second.

Rounding off the top five were Colombia, Turkey and Russia.

On the opposite end of the Index were Croatia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Republic of Montenegro, and Bulgaria, all in the Balkans area of Europe.

The researchers defined impunity as “the impossibility, de jure or de facto, of bringing the perpetrators of violations to account — whether in criminal, civil, administrative, or disciplinary proceedings — since they are not subject to any inquiry that might lead to their being accused, arrested, tried, and, if found guilty, sentenced to appropriate penalties, and to making reparations to their victims.”

Corruption stems from impunity

Interestingly, the researchers concluded that corruption is not the source but the result of impunity.

“The reason people have become increasingly corrupt is because they realize how the system functions, how the structure of the system of goverment creates conditions to allow to them to escape unpunished,” said L. A. Derbez Bautista, rector of the university.

“Having good laws is not enough for a country to develop,” the study stressed. “People need to know that those are going to be effectively implemented.”

According to the research team, impunity is a concept with three dimensions: security, justice, and human rights. Each dimension was evaluated in terms of structural capacity and functionality in the countries included in the research.

Only 59 of the 193 member-countries of the United Nations were included in the study. This was due to the availability of updated data on the three dimensions of impunity.

Emergent countries like India, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia do not periodically give information to the UN on security and justice, and therefore were excluded.

However, the researchers expect to include more countries in the future.

Inequality, not wealth, fuels impunity

Surprisingly, the study concluded that the wealth of a country is irrelevant when it comes to impunity, as shown in the per capita income of the best performers in the Index.

What helps fuel impunity, it said, was inequality, noting that countries that did not provide opportunities for economic development failed to reduce the unequal access to security and justice for their citizens.

Countries with medium and high levels of human development ranked better in the Index.

The measurement of the Index includes 14 factors divided in three groups: five related to problems of public security, five to administration and delivery of justice, and four to violations of human rights.

The Philippines did not get good results in any of the 14 factors and had the worst “structure of the security system” and “security system of human rights.”

According to the study, public security is not so much related to the number of police in the streets as to their capacity and preparation, and how they carry out operations.

A low ratio of judges to citizens was also a factor common to all the countries with high levels of impunity. –InterAksyon.com