The International Bar Association has raised concerns about the global state of the rule of law, with a new survey finding a significant gap between how much legal professionals value fundamental rule-of-law principles and how they implement them in practice.
Nigeria is among the countries surveyed in the IBA’s 2026 Rule of Law Backsliding Survey, which drew responses from legal professionals across more than 64 countries.
The survey was conducted between August and December 2025 and received 326 responses, with 316 ultimately included in the report’s analysis.
The respondents included lawyers, judges, academics, government officials, civil servants, representatives of non-governmental organisations and professional legal bodies.
The report found that core rule-of-law principles were rated between 9.2 and 9.7 out of 10 in terms of importance.
However, their implementation was assessed much lower, between 6.2 and 6.8.
The IBA said the findings pointed to a significant implementation gap across jurisdictions.
Access to justice emerged as one of the clearest examples.
While 83 per cent of respondents considered access to justice before independent and impartial courts extremely important, only 43 per cent considered it well implemented in their jurisdictions.
The survey also raised concerns over judicial independence.
Sixty-seven per cent of respondents identified government actors as a threat to judicial independence, while 83 per cent identified political parties as a threat.
At the same time, professional legal bodies were widely regarded as safeguards, with about 95 per cent of respondents identifying bar associations, bar councils, law societies and other regulators of the legal profession in that category.
Africa, Middle East
Nigeria was one of eight countries represented in the report’s Africa and Middle East category, alongside Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Oman and Qatar.
The region accounted for 15 respondents in the survey.
The IBA, however, did not provide a separate Nigeria-specific breakdown of the responses.
The regional findings nevertheless highlight concerns that are relevant to the administration of justice across the participating African and Middle Eastern jurisdictions.
For example, corruption was identified as the principal factor affecting judicial impartiality by 11 of the 15 respondents from Africa and the Middle East.
That compares with a broader global finding in which 75 per cent of respondents said their judiciary was impartial overall, while 48 per cent said they had personally witnessed or encountered judicial bias.
The report also found significant concerns about judicial resources globally.
Sixty-four per cent of respondents disagreed that their judiciary receives adequate human, material and financial resources.
In the Council of Europe, 68 per cent expressed that concern, while the figure rose to 76 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report identified chronic underfunding, staff shortages and inadequate infrastructure as factors contributing to delays in the administration of justice and limiting access to justice.
On judicial independence, the report said 53 per cent of respondents from Africa and the Middle East disagreed or strongly disagreed that inappropriate or unwarranted interference in the judicial process was absent.
The figure was based on eight of the region’s 15 respondents.
The report also identified professional legal bodies and civil society organisations as important safeguards against interference with judicial independence.
Judicial Impartiality, Accountability
The survey found a striking difference between perceptions of the judiciary generally and respondents’ individual experiences.
Although three-quarters of respondents considered their judiciary impartial, nearly half reported personal experiences of judicial bias.
The factors affecting impartiality differed by region.
In Africa and the Middle East, corruption was the factor most frequently identified.
The report also examined judicial accountability, noting that the concept has no universally settled definition.
Globally, 89 per cent of respondents associated judicial accountability with the absence of corruption, while 86 per cent linked it to adherence to standards of judicial conduct and 84 per cent to transparent and effective disciplinary mechanisms.
But the IBA warned that demands for judicial accountability must not become a means of undermining judicial independence or impartiality.
The IBA Rule of Law Forum is recommending stronger monitoring of threats to judicial independence, greater involvement of the legal profession in law and policy-making, and stronger partnerships between lawyers, civil society organisations and academic institutions.
It is also calling for measures to protect judges and lawyers from intimidation, harassment and improper interference, alongside stronger professional ethics, continuing legal education and increased pro bono work.
The report concluded that while there is broad international agreement on the importance of the rule of law, the challenge lies in ensuring that those principles are effectively implemented.
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