Three Mexican governors have been arrested in 2017 abroad after fleeing justice, and nearly 90% of the country’s citizens see the government as deeply corrupt.
The rule of law can take on different meanings depending whom you ask and where you are – but in the US it pretty much means one thing.
In post-dictatorship Argentina, citizens, like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, have been the guardians of justice.
Argentine Ministry of Culture/flickr
South Africa’s social grants fiasco begs the question: was it orchestrated to undermine the judiciary and the constitution and hide sheer incompetence on the part of government?
People queue to register for government grants in Cape Town, South Africa.
EPA/Nic Bothma
South Africa’s Constitutional Court is in a fix. The only way to deliver social grants that support millions would be through a process that’s without validation, would be unlawful and invalid.
There’s a whole system of checks and balances in place to stop a president like Trump going too far.
Head of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, Shaun Abrahams, dropped a fraud charge against the finance minister Pravin Gordhan.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority charged the country’s finance minister Pravin Gordhan and two of his former colleagues at the tax authority, Ivan Pillay and Oupa Magashule, with fraud last…
Crown Resorts operates three casinos in Macau and planned to lure more Chinese high rollers to its Australian operations before the arrest of eighteen employees threw their behaviour in China into question.
Tyrone Siu/Reuters
The electorate and those involved in public governance should focus more on how judges are appointed. This is because they need to make sure that individuals of the highest quality get the job.
A chaotic traffic jam chokes the Nigerian coastal capital Lagos.
Reuters/George Esiri
The fact that businesses cannot accurately calculate the cost of doing business in Nigeria because of corruption makes them jittery.But it doesn’t mean Nigeria is more corrupt than any other country.
South African President Jacob Zuma, right, listens to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng ahead of Zuma’s second inauguration in Pretoria.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Tensions are probably inevitable in any constitutional democracy that empowers the courts to overrule the executive and legislature. But, judges are worried cabinet undermines the rule of law.
There are lessons to be learnt about the ICC from the Kellogg-Briand Pact, signed in 1928. It failed to prevent the outbreak of war but brought war criminals to justice later.
Reuters
The ICC has not lived up to its noble intentions of making the world more just. Its failure echoes that of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which set out to banish wars and to settle disputes peacefully.
The production of indicators, such as the World Economic Forum’s ranking of economies on competitiveness, is a political process.
Reuters/Victor Ruiz Garcia
Governance indicators have become essential for policy formation and political decision-making, helping us make sense of the messy social world, manage and govern it.
Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of Canberra