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The Egyptian legal system is not known for its fairness... the World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries, in last place out of 8 countries in

The Egyptian legal system is not known for its fairness... the World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries, in last place out of 8 countries in the Middle East[1] Similarly (and tragically) the Syrian government is not known for its compassion towards its distressed citizens. [1] https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/country/Egypt https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/country/Eg...

user3939382 5y ago
Most people may think I’m being pessimistic and jaded. But I think these rankings are hilarious (in a bad sense). Just like the corruption rankings that come out. The US gets a green square and a high rank, smaller countries are corrupt and unfair. I could fill up paragraphs about how corrupt and dysfunctional our (US) legal and political systems are. Meanwhile I spent a long time in Central Africa (a red square country) and know to compare. I don’t get the purpose of these rankings.
- akarma 5y ago
  Looking at the WJP Rule of Law Index linked above, it's considering factors like constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, and fundamental rights. As someone involved in law in the US, the US is really good at these types of things. People, including Americans who have lived here their entire lives, are consistently amazed when they learn the power of the court and how functional it all has managed to be.
- FredPret 5y ago
  You think Central Africa is less corrupt and more just than the USA? Jeez, that takes the cake hey. I’m from Africa, have left now, and this is pure nonsense. The USA doesn’t have to be literally perfect for it to be a good place.
  - hcurtiss 5y ago
    Same. I help put deals together with some experience in SE Asia. The ability to enforce contract and property rights in the US, with ready access to the courts and relatively clear rules, sets the US apart in terms of business efficiency and predictability. In my assessment, it's a large part of what's made the US so prosperous. In contrast, dealing with corrupt officials in smaller countries in SE Asia is just wild.
    - selimnairb 5y ago
      Right the US has rule of law for businesses. What about poor people? Not so much. See: civil asset forfeiture, being jailed for petty fines you can’t afford to pay, insane fees used by low-tax jurisdictions to fund their courts.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - FredPret 5y ago
        It’s certainly not perfect, I agree with your specific points. But it’s not even at all comparable with the third world. It’s vastly better to a degree that left me totally mindfucked for years after I moved to the first world.
        DubiousPusher 5y ago
        > But it’s not even at all comparable with the third world. I trust your observations of where you came from but I believe this is over-generalizing to places you may not have personal experience with.
        coliveira 5y ago
        It is much better if you're not the target of the system, which in the US means that you're white and/or middle class or better.
    - DubiousPusher 5y ago
      Yes, the U.S. has gone to great length to ensure the smooth operation of business. In fact you might say this is essentially the primary purpose of U.S. legal system. As an example, one researcher looked at all the Supreme Court cases involving the 14th amendment between 1870 and 1940. The 14th amendment as you'll recall is an amendment focused on the individual equal protections people have under the law. I cannot recall the figures exactly, but of some 100+ cases ~70% pertained to business and around a dozen were focused on violations of individual's rights. Property rights are an especially important tool when it comes to the operation of a materially wealthy society. But their imposition does not somehow guarantee that a society is more just or fair and less corrupt than any other. Edit: I looked up the figures in my notes. The paper involved all Supreme Court cases involving the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court struck down 232 state laws, 179 of the decisions were in favor of corporations, 55 were in favor of the growing railroads and 9 were in favor of individual black petitioners. The paper isn't online and I don't have access to it anymore to check but I believe it is this paper. "Protecting Corporations Instead of the Poor" by Alec Karakatsanis in Harvard Law Review 275.
- frozenlettuce 5y ago
  I believe that the goal is to put pressure on those countries and make investors afraid of placing money there. Of course that a single ranking can't make this, but having multiple indexes + media narrative in this sense can create great leverage for unfair trade deals. If for example you consider lobbying=corruption (in many countries it is), then the US should indeed be many rankings below.
- mym1990 5y ago
  Seems like your rankings are mostly based on anecdotal experiences?
- omginternets 5y ago
  It seems like you're equating "there is corruption in the US" with "the US has more corruption than most other countries". I share your concern for corruption in the US, but I submit that you have lost your sense of proportion. The US is not -- by any stretch of the imagination -- anything less than "mostly not corrupt".
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Not to mention the fact that for any poor, poorly-ranked nation, it's likely that USA actions there include dropping bombs, assassinating socialist-leaning democratically-elected leadership, stationing troops and/or spooks, encouraging theft of natural resources, funding criminal terrorist anti-state groups, etc.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Choosing how to measure these parameters and what relative weight to give each of them is inherently very political. US has been given a surprisingly high score while France and Italy are way below China! There seems to be quite a lot of bias in this kind of scoring.
- neither_color 5y ago
  That's because, as a consequence of our own transparency, on every thread on a political topic, the resident anarchist trolls are free to give us a history lesson of everything wrong the US has ever done. There are many countries where such types of posters would get arrested on some real or made-up charge for being hyper critical of the state. Most Americans who feel that we're some hyper-corrupt, irreparable place(systemically dysfunctional, if you will) have no idea how far other governments go to cover up their dirty deeds. Our rule of law is still the envy of people who come from places that rule by law.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
duxup 5y ago
>World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries Man considering the scale here that's horrific. But I guess that would explain a process here where they seem to punish someone... 'just because', and with no value coming from the process at all. It's just injustice for no reason at all.... I can understand corruption to some extent. They get something, but punish this guy for no value, I don't get it.
- AnthonBerg 5y ago
  I can think of two incentives for punishing this guy for no value: First, it will appear that they have “done something about it”, say, to their superiors. Second, some people also feel good if they can put someone down or enforce a loss on someone; It’s a stunted heuristic for them “winning”. So there is very clear value in it. If the harm is disregarded.
dang 5y ago
We detached this generic tangent from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26907026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26907026. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
joe_the_user 5y ago
Of course, many third world nations have little regard for their multitude of poor citizens. But I think it's important to high light the way that in situations like this, these nations are forced to accept that the "laws of the sea" trump their own laws and then wind-up unable/unwilling to intervene when a ship, a load of goods or a person winds-up in international legal limbo - the true, horrific poster-child for this was the disastrous Beirut explosion. Enough explosives to level half the city sat in legal limbo for years ... until they did that, yeah. And as we see here, there are many terrible but more mundane examples.
politician 5y ago
Egypt is about to be dried out. Ethopia is building a dam on the Blue Nile and will have the ability to fully control how much water reaches Egypt. It seems that the lack of compassion that Egypt has for its neighbors will be repaid in kind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Da...

user3939382 5y ago

Most people may think I’m being pessimistic and jaded. But I think these rankings are hilarious (in a bad sense). Just like the corruption rankings that come out. The US gets a green square and a high rank, smaller countries are corrupt and unfair. I could fill up paragraphs about how corrupt and dysfunctional our (US) legal and political systems are. Meanwhile I spent a long time in Central Africa (a red square country) and know to compare. I don’t get the purpose of these rankings.

akarma 5y ago
Looking at the WJP Rule of Law Index linked above, it's considering factors like constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, and fundamental rights. As someone involved in law in the US, the US is really good at these types of things. People, including Americans who have lived here their entire lives, are consistently amazed when they learn the power of the court and how functional it all has managed to be.
FredPret 5y ago
You think Central Africa is less corrupt and more just than the USA? Jeez, that takes the cake hey. I’m from Africa, have left now, and this is pure nonsense. The USA doesn’t have to be literally perfect for it to be a good place.
- hcurtiss 5y ago
  Same. I help put deals together with some experience in SE Asia. The ability to enforce contract and property rights in the US, with ready access to the courts and relatively clear rules, sets the US apart in terms of business efficiency and predictability. In my assessment, it's a large part of what's made the US so prosperous. In contrast, dealing with corrupt officials in smaller countries in SE Asia is just wild.
  - selimnairb 5y ago
    Right the US has rule of law for businesses. What about poor people? Not so much. See: civil asset forfeiture, being jailed for petty fines you can’t afford to pay, insane fees used by low-tax jurisdictions to fund their courts.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - FredPret 5y ago
      It’s certainly not perfect, I agree with your specific points. But it’s not even at all comparable with the third world. It’s vastly better to a degree that left me totally mindfucked for years after I moved to the first world.
      - DubiousPusher 5y ago
        > But it’s not even at all comparable with the third world. I trust your observations of where you came from but I believe this is over-generalizing to places you may not have personal experience with.
      - coliveira 5y ago
        It is much better if you're not the target of the system, which in the US means that you're white and/or middle class or better.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    Yes, the U.S. has gone to great length to ensure the smooth operation of business. In fact you might say this is essentially the primary purpose of U.S. legal system. As an example, one researcher looked at all the Supreme Court cases involving the 14th amendment between 1870 and 1940. The 14th amendment as you'll recall is an amendment focused on the individual equal protections people have under the law. I cannot recall the figures exactly, but of some 100+ cases ~70% pertained to business and around a dozen were focused on violations of individual's rights. Property rights are an especially important tool when it comes to the operation of a materially wealthy society. But their imposition does not somehow guarantee that a society is more just or fair and less corrupt than any other. Edit: I looked up the figures in my notes. The paper involved all Supreme Court cases involving the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court struck down 232 state laws, 179 of the decisions were in favor of corporations, 55 were in favor of the growing railroads and 9 were in favor of individual black petitioners. The paper isn't online and I don't have access to it anymore to check but I believe it is this paper. "Protecting Corporations Instead of the Poor" by Alec Karakatsanis in Harvard Law Review 275.
frozenlettuce 5y ago
I believe that the goal is to put pressure on those countries and make investors afraid of placing money there. Of course that a single ranking can't make this, but having multiple indexes + media narrative in this sense can create great leverage for unfair trade deals. If for example you consider lobbying=corruption (in many countries it is), then the US should indeed be many rankings below.
mym1990 5y ago
Seems like your rankings are mostly based on anecdotal experiences?
omginternets 5y ago
It seems like you're equating "there is corruption in the US" with "the US has more corruption than most other countries". I share your concern for corruption in the US, but I submit that you have lost your sense of proportion. The US is not -- by any stretch of the imagination -- anything less than "mostly not corrupt".
jessaustin 5y ago
Not to mention the fact that for any poor, poorly-ranked nation, it's likely that USA actions there include dropping bombs, assassinating socialist-leaning democratically-elected leadership, stationing troops and/or spooks, encouraging theft of natural resources, funding criminal terrorist anti-state groups, etc.
goodpoint 5y ago
Choosing how to measure these parameters and what relative weight to give each of them is inherently very political. US has been given a surprisingly high score while France and Italy are way below China! There seems to be quite a lot of bias in this kind of scoring.
neither_color 5y ago
That's because, as a consequence of our own transparency, on every thread on a political topic, the resident anarchist trolls are free to give us a history lesson of everything wrong the US has ever done. There are many countries where such types of posters would get arrested on some real or made-up charge for being hyper critical of the state. Most Americans who feel that we're some hyper-corrupt, irreparable place(systemically dysfunctional, if you will) have no idea how far other governments go to cover up their dirty deeds. Our rule of law is still the envy of people who come from places that rule by law.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

duxup 5y ago

>World Justice Project ranks it 125 of 128 surveyed countries Man considering the scale here that's horrific. But I guess that would explain a process here where they seem to punish someone... 'just because', and with no value coming from the process at all. It's just injustice for no reason at all.... I can understand corruption to some extent. They get something, but punish this guy for no value, I don't get it.

AnthonBerg 5y ago
I can think of two incentives for punishing this guy for no value: First, it will appear that they have “done something about it”, say, to their superiors. Second, some people also feel good if they can put someone down or enforce a loss on someone; It’s a stunted heuristic for them “winning”. So there is very clear value in it. If the harm is disregarded.

dang 5y ago

We detached this generic tangent from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26907026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26907026. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

joe_the_user 5y ago

Of course, many third world nations have little regard for their multitude of poor citizens. But I think it's important to high light the way that in situations like this, these nations are forced to accept that the "laws of the sea" trump their own laws and then wind-up unable/unwilling to intervene when a ship, a load of goods or a person winds-up in international legal limbo - the true, horrific poster-child for this was the disastrous Beirut explosion. Enough explosives to level half the city sat in legal limbo for years ... until they did that, yeah. And as we see here, there are many terrible but more mundane examples.

politician 5y ago

Egypt is about to be dried out. Ethopia is building a dam on the Blue Nile and will have the ability to fully control how much water reaches Egypt. It seems that the lack of compassion that Egypt has for its neighbors will be repaid in kind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Da...