By Charlotte Webster-
Almost one in four respondents to a landmark international survey examining the erosion of the rule of law came from the UK, with legal professionals raising concerns over the conduct of successive governments, restrictions on peaceful protest, pressure on journalists and tensions surrounding international legal obligations. The survey, conducted as part of a wider project on rule of law “backsliding” by the International Bar Association Rule of Law Forum, found that 73 of the 326 legal professionals who participated were based in the UK. Respondents included lawyers in private practice and academics from 64 countries.
UK participants pointed to a series of events and developments that they said had raised concerns about the country’s commitment to the rule of law. Among the examples cited was the 2019 prorogation of Parliament during the Brexit debates, as well as allegations that government officials failed to comply with Covid-19 restrictions while such measures were in force. The survey also recorded concerns over government attacks on immigration lawyers and tensions surrounding compliance with international law and the European Convention on Human Rights. Other respondents highlighted restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, including the criminalisation of peaceful protest. The findings are very revealing. Legal professionals also cited what they described as the use of legal intimidation against journalists and the deployment of counter-terrorism legislation to suppress dissent, adding to wider concerns about the ability of individuals and institutions to hold governments and public authorities to account.
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The findings published in the Law Society’s Law Gazette come against a backdrop of a continuing global deterioration in adherence to the rule of law. The Justice Project’s 2025 Rule of Law Index found that 68% of countries experienced a decline in their rule of law performance between 2024 and 2025, marking the eighth consecutive year in which more countries deteriorated than improved. The survey also highlighted a significant gap between the importance legal professionals attach to fundamental rule-of-law principles and their assessment of how effectively those principles operate in practice. While 83% of respondents said access to justice before independent and impartial courts was extremely important, only 43% believed it was well implemented in their jurisdiction.
Judicial impartiality emerged as another area of concern. Although 75% of respondents said they considered their judiciary impartial overall, 48% reported that they had personally witnessed or encountered judicial bias. The international project is led by Tahera Mandviwala, managing partner of TDT Legal in India, together with the Bingham Centre for Rule of Law and professors Sandra Kröger and Renata Uitz. It seeks to examine how the rule of law can gradually weaken through the erosion or normalisation of practices and safeguards that underpin accountable government and independent justice systems. Mandviwala said the most serious threat may not necessarily come from an outright rejection of the rule of law, but from the gradual acceptance of compromises to its principles.
“The most dangerous threat to the rule of law is not always its outright rejection, but the gradual normalisation of its compromise,” she said.
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The survey, she added, demonstrates that widespread agreement on the fundamental principles of the rule of law does not necessarily translate into effective protection of those principles in practice.
“The gap identified by legal professionals around the world between what the rule of law requires and how those requirements are being implemented in practice should be a matter of serious concern,” Mandviwala said. She said concerns surrounding judicial independence, impartiality and accountability were particularly significant because they were not peripheral elements of the rule of law but essential safeguards for justice, public confidence and the lawful exercise of power.
The UK findings therefore form part of a much wider international picture in which legal professionals are identifying a growing distance between formal commitments to the rule of law and its practical implementation. With concerns ranging from judicial independence and access to justice to freedom of expression, protest and compliance with international obligations, the survey provides a warning that the weakening of legal safeguards can occur incrementally, through the normalisation of practices that gradually test the limits of institutional accountability.
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