The Government of Guyana has challenged the accuracy of Guyana’s placement in the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index 2025, arguing that the ranking was derived from outdated surveys and does not represent the nation’s current governance and justice landscape.

In a statement issued on Thursday by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance (MPAG)  said while it values international mechanisms that monitor governance and anti-corruption efforts, the data underpinning the WJP 2025 Index is “as old as seven years ago.” Guyana was ranked 80th in the 2025 report, a slight drop from 78th in 2024.

According to the release, “The 2025 report, without question, relies on older datasets, including household polling data which originates from 2018 and 2022 by the StatMark Group. Of note, neither of these face-to-face surveys were ever made public at the time, nor does the public know of the StatMark Group.”

The Ministry stressed that such outdated surveys fail to account for major institutional and legislative reforms implemented since 2022.

It noted that the government has undertaken significant improvements across governance and justice sectors, making the Index an unreliable reflection of Guyana’s progress.

“The report therefore, cannot be construed as a real reflection of Guyana’s 2025 realities, particularly given ongoing institutional and legislative reforms across governance and justice sectors after 2022, and certainly since 2018,” the statement said.

The Ministry also questioned the credibility of the expert opinions used to compile the Index, pointing out that most contributors remained anonymous.

“It cannot be that the perceptions of a few anonymous people are considered representative of the entire population of approximately 800,000,” the Ministry stated, adding that “without more rigorous sampling parameters, it is indeed difficult to validate the robustness or representativeness of the findings.”

While acknowledging that such rankings “may provide attractive sound bites for some,” MPAG urged the public and the media to review official national data when interpreting third-party publications.

The Ministry also reiterated Guyana’s openness to international review and scrutiny, citing the country’s recent participation in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

As such, it called for transparency in methodology, timely data collection and clear disclosure of sampling processes, noting that reliance on 2018 and 2022 data “must not be misconstrued as depicting Guyana’s 2025 governance environment.”