Egypt ranked last worldwide for government openness and 135th out of 143 countries overall in the latest World Justice Project’s 2026 Rule of Law Index.
The country scored 0.35 on a scale of zero to one, recording a marginal 0.5% improvement after a 1.3% decline in 2025. Its global ranking remained unchanged for a second consecutive year, while it finished last among the 10 Middle Eastern and North African countries covered by the index.
The findings place Egypt among the world’s lowest-performing countries in institutional accountability, civil liberties and access to justice under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, whose regime has deployed unprecedented repression and restrictions on political opposition, critical or independent journalism, and judicial independence.
Alongside its position as last of 143 countries worldwide for open government, Egypt ranked 141st for constraints on government powers and 141st for fundamental rights. All three categories received scores of just 0.23.
Beyond these broad categories, Egypt finished last globally on three specific measures spanning the effectiveness of parliamentary checks on government power, non-governmental oversight of the executive, and citizens’ right to information.
It also ranked second to last for civic participation, scoring 0.16, and 139th for mechanisms allowing citizens to submit complaints about public services and government officials.
The results, according to the index, point to weaknesses extending beyond the enforcement of individual laws to the institutions responsible for holding the executive accountable.
Egypt’s weakest performance concerned public access to information.
The country scored 0.12 for the right to information, compared with a global average of 0.50 and a regional average of 0.38, placing it last among all 143 countries assessed.
The measure examines whether government agencies provide requested information, respond within reasonable periods, disclose complete and relevant records, and make information available without excessive costs or bribery.
This specific result exposes a longstanding gap between Egypt’s constitutional guarantees and their implementation.
Article 68 of the constitution states that official information, statistics, data, and documents “are owned by the people” and requires state institutions to disclose them transparently and mandates legislation regulating access, confidentiality, and appeals against refusals.
More than 12 years later, Egypt has yet to enact the law required to implement that right.
In an analysis published earlier this year, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) said the absence of legislation left government agencies with broad discretion over what information they published and when they updated it.
AFTE also criticized the government’s reliance on criminal penalties against the publication of allegedly false information while failing to establish enforceable mechanisms for obtaining official records.
Efforts to change that position have gained momentum this year.
In August, the Journalists Syndicate submitted a freedom-of-information bill to parliament through Egyptian Social Democratic Party MP Maha Abdel Nasser, after obtaining the signatures of 60 lawmakers.
The proposal would establish an authority to supervise disclosure, regulate requests for official documents, and provide mechanisms for appealing refusals. It would also require public bodies to publish information proactively.
However, even if passed, the bill is unlikely to change much. Under the proposed legislation, which The Cairo Report obtained a copy of, representatives of the Ministry of Defense, General Intelligence Service, and Ministry of Interior would sit on the General Secretariat of the authority responsible for supervising the disclosure of official information.
The three representatives would be appointed by their respective institutions and serve alongside representatives of the Journalists Syndicate and civil society.
The secretariat would be responsible for gathering information, conducting research, and preparing complaints against government agencies that refuse to disclose information.
The bill would also require the authority to consult representatives of relevant government institutions when specialist advice is needed, particularly on national security matters.
A separate government proposal was discussed earlier this month.
On October 7, Al Manassa reported, citing a member of the government’s media development committee, that Minister of State for Information Diaa Rashwan had indicated the government could submit its own bill to parliament around a planned media conference in December.
The index’s findings also raise questions about Egypt’s institutional system of accountability.
In the constraints on government powers assessment, Egypt ranked last worldwide for the legislature’s effectiveness in limiting executive authority.
It also ranked the country last for non-governmental checks on power, a measure encompassing the ability of critical or independent media and civil society organizations to investigate, scrutinize, and hold public officials accountable.
Judicial checks on executive power ranked 128th, while independent auditing and oversight ranked 135th.
The pattern reflects the concentration of political authority that has developed since Sisi took office in 2014.
Constitutional amendments approved in 2019 expanded presidential powers over judicial appointments, while extending the period during which Sisi could remain president until 2030.
The Bertelsmann Transformation Index’s (BTI) latest Egypt assessment describes a political system in which the presidency, military, and security institutions exercise substantial influence over decision-making, while parliament provides almost no effective oversight.
The report also identifies restrictions on judicial independence and presidential authority to appoint the heads of major judicial bodies.
Egypt’s parliamentary elections in late 2025 took place amid restrictions on political competition. As The Cairo Report documented at the time, only one party list qualified to contest the 284 seats allocated through the closed-list system, effectively securing nearly half of the 596-member House of Representatives for a coalition dominated by parties loyal to Sisi’s rule.
The elections were subsequently marked by widespread reports of vote-buying, interference with candidates, and “irregularities” in counting. On November 17, Sisi publicly urged the National Elections Authority to “investigate complaints” and annul results where necessary. The following day, the authority cancelled results in 19 of 70 constituencies during the first phase.
The Cairo Report’s analysis also examined rivalries between political networks associated with the Interior Ministry’s security apparatus and the General Intelligence Service over candidate selection and parliamentary influence. The disputes revealed how competition within the state’s security apparatus shaped an electoral process already dominated by pro-government parties, which have already contributed greatly to non-existent parliamentary oversight.
Meanwhile, the government’s relationship with critical journalism provides more immediate context for the findings.
On September 28 and 29, security forces arrested six journalists working for Matsada2sh, an independent investigative and fact-checking outlet, effectively detaining its entire editorial team.
The arrests initially took place without disclosed warrants or information about the journalists’ whereabouts.
The Interior Ministry subsequently acknowledged the arrests and accused the journalists of “producing fabricated reports” for an outlet allegedly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Matsada2sh denied the accusations.
Dozens of press freedom organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned the arrests.
Egypt also ranked 169th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index, which identified the criminalization of journalism as a major driver of deteriorating press freedoms internationally.
While the latest World Justice Project figures do not establish that the latest round of arrests caused Egypt’s position in the index, they provide context for its assessment of independent scrutiny, freedom of expression and public participation.
Egypt’s open-government score has remained consistently weak for over a decade.
According to the index’s historical data, it fell from 0.32 in 2015 to approximately 0.23 in 2016. It has fluctuated around that all-time low level ever since, standing at 0.23 in 2026.
The latest findings therefore show little recovery from the deterioration recorded a decade earlier, despite successive official initiatives intended to expand political dialogue and public participation—only in rhetoric, of course.
Egypt’s performance was also weak across the justice system.
The country ranked 131st globally for civil justice, with a score of 0.37, and 105th for criminal justice, scoring 0.34.
Within civil justice, Egypt ranked 137th for the effective enforcement of court decisions and 133rd for the absence of discrimination.
It ranked 136th for the accessibility and effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including mediation and arbitration.
In criminal justice, Egypt ranked 128th for due process and the rights of accused persons, and 125th for the effectiveness of its prison system in reducing criminal behavior.
The findings come amid continuing controversy over the country’s Criminal Procedure Code.
Sisi had ratified a new Criminal Procedure Code in November 2025 after returning an earlier version to parliament for amendments. The president presented the changes as measures strengthening defendants’ rights, expanding alternatives to pretrial detention and improving judicial safeguards.
Several rights organizations, however, criticized the legislation, warning that it preserved broad powers for law enforcement authorities and inadequate protections against arbitrary detention.
The legislation was originally scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2026.
On September 30, parliament approved an emergency amendment by the government postponing implementation for another year, citing “the need to complete technological and institutional preparations”.
The postponement leaves the existing criminal procedure framework in place for another year.
The World Justice Project nevertheless recorded some improvements in Egypt’s civil justice system.
Its 2026 report identified improvements in the accessibility and affordability of civil justice and in protection against discrimination in civil proceedings.
Egypt also avoided the one-year declines in already non-existent freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and civic participation recorded across most countries.
Those improvements contributed to the marginal increase in its overall score, which, in general, was ineffective when it came to its position near the bottom of the global rankings.
Egypt’s overall score of 0.35 remained substantially below the Middle East and North Africa average of 0.50.
Egypt also ranked 28th among 33 lower-middle-income countries included in the index.
The country ranked 105th for absence of corruption, with a score of 0.38—faring somewhat better than its 130th-place standing on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index earlier this year—and 134th for regulatory enforcement, scoring 0.36.
The regulatory measure examines whether administrative rules are implemented fairly, effectively, and without improper government or private influence, covering areas including commercial activity, public health, workplace safety, and environmental regulation.
Egypt’s weak performance in civil justice and regulatory enforcement therefore extends the rule-of-law findings beyond political freedoms to the administration of everyday legal and economic affairs.
The latest global report, however, found that rule-of-law standards deteriorated in 62% of the countries surveyed, compared with improvements in just 38%.
It marked the ninth consecutive year in which declining countries outnumbered improving ones.
The World Justice Project attributed the global deterioration primarily to weakening restraints on executive authority, restrictions on civic participation and growing political interference in judicial institutions.
Freedom of expression declined in 64% of countries, freedom of assembly and association in 67%, and civic participation in 65%.
Judicial constraints on government authority weakened in 63% of countries.
More than 86% of the countries surveyed had experienced sustained deterioration in at least one major safeguard against authoritarian government over the preceding five years, according to the organization.
Denmark topped the global rankings, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Luxembourg. Venezuela ranked last overall.
The index draws on more than household surveys and surveys of legal practitioners and experts worldwide. Its 44 underlying measures are grouped into eight categories covering government accountability, corruption, openness, rights, security, regulation, and justice.
The assessments capture how the rule of law is experienced, practiced, and perceived, rather than simply recording laws on the books.
As far as Egypt is concerned, the results show that a slight annual improvement has done little to change a decade-long pattern: some of the weakest constraints on government authority, limited avenues for public participation, and the lowest score worldwide for government openness.