Lawrence McNamara & Celia Rooney on corruption in the UK justice system
Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer reported this month that 24% of people in the UK believe the courts and judiciary are corrupt or extremely corrupt, and that 20% of people who used the courts in 2012 said they or a household member had paid a bribe in relation to that.
These findings have had little attention. They even went unmentioned by the co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption.
Yet, they seem remarkable. Can they really be correct? What are we to make of them?
Temperature gauge
The Barometer is derived from surveys of 1,000 people in each of 107 countries about their perception and experience of corruption in a dozen institutional categories including “Judiciary (courts)”.
First, perception. While 24% think the courts and judiciary are affected by corruption, this is not out of kilter with common law countries such as Australia (28%), Canada (25%), or New Zealand (20%). Still, it is up from 19% since the 2011 report and confidence in the courts
