Poland has fallen to its lowest ever position in the annual corruption index produced by Transparency International. Since reaching its highest position of 29th in 2015, Poland has now fallen to 45th, below Costa Rica and Botswana.
The authors of the ranking identify Poland as among the European Union’s “significant decliners”, and point to the erosion of rule of law, judicial independence and democratic oversight as factors that allow corruption to flourish.
The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks 180 countries and territories by “perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people” surveyed by Transparency International, a Berlin-based NGO.
The ranking was jointly topped by New Zealand and Denmark, which each recorded a score of 88. At the other end of the scale, Somalia and South Sudan were in joint last place, with scores of 12.
In this year’s index, Poland was given its lowest ever score (56) and ranking (45th). After the index was launched in 2012, Poland steadily rose from a position of 41st to reach 29th by 2015. However, after a change in government that year, its position has fallen significantly.
During that time, the ruling coalition – led by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – has pursued a controversial and contested overhaul of state institutions, in particular the judiciary.
“[Poland’s] ruling party has consistently promoted reforms that weaken judicial independence,” writes Transparency International in this year’s report. “The steady erosion of the rule of law and democratic oversight has created conditions for corruption to flourish at the highest levels of power.”
The NGO also notes that, during the coronavirus pandemic, Polish “government leaders exploit the COVID-19 crisis for political gain, undermining democracy, human rights and anti-corruption efforts”.
Their report points to “opaque public spending related to COVID-19″ in Poland, a “heavy-handed police crackdown on peaceful women’s rights protesters”, and “an attempt to secure impunity for officials who broke the law in relation with the pandemic”.
Meanwhile, in Poland’s recent dispute with the EU over making European funds conditional on respect for the rule of law, “Polish political leaders put democracy and anti-corruption reforms at risk”.
Andrzej Rychard, director of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academic of Sciences, told Wirtualne Media that Poland’s decline in the index is “saddening”.
“This is a challenge to the legitimacy of the forces exercising power, which have the words ‘law’ and ‘justice’ in their name,” he added.
Since PiS came to power in 2015, Poland has fallen in a number of international rankings relating to democracy, freedom and rule of law.
Last year, Freedom House, a US-based NGO, deemed that Poland no longer qualified as a full democracy. The country’s decline in Freedom House’s category of “judicial framework and independence” has been the largest ever recorded for that indicator by the NGO.
In the latest World Press Freedom Index, Poland fell to its lowest ever position of 62nd, following five consecutive years of decline from a high of 18th in 2015.
During PiS’s first four years in office, Poland also recorded the biggest decline of any country in the World Justice Project’s Rule-of-Law Index and dropped six places in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (where it is now classified as a “flawed democracy”).
In 2019, in the Index of Economic Freedom compiled by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank, Poland fell to 46th position, down from 39th in 2016. In the Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index, it fell from a high of 21st in 2011 to 40th last year.
Main image credit: Transparency International (under CC BY-ND 4.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
