About Fair Trials Index

Fair trials are a cornerstone of democracy, helping to ensure fair and just societies and limiting abuse by governments and state authorities. Without the bedrock of impartial justice, trust in institutions erodes, and entire communities are left vulnerable.

Presently, no index comprehensively unpacks the right to a fair trial.

Global indexes are important as they can inform and even trigger powerful global transformations. They shine a light on the state of play, often debunking stereotypes and highlighting good and poor practices. Indexes can spark public discourse and encourage governments to address deficiencies. Their existence alone can provide a platform for media engagement and advocacy with policymakers, but also provide reliable and comparable data to inform the work of reformers directing resources where they are most needed and driving real change.

Fair Trials Europe has teamed up with international law firm Freshfields to create an index that compares different countries’ criminal justice systems.

The Fair Trials Index Project aims at creating an Index focused on presenting the degree to which criminal justice systems around the world comply with the right to a fair trial by implementing the different rights and safeguards it contains.

Objectives

The Index will:

1. create global awareness of the set of rights and safeguards that constitute the right to a fair trial, from the moment of arrest until a judicial decision is reached;
2. establish clear and measurable standards for compliance with the right to a fair trial as a whole, providing governments with concrete targets to achieve;
3. facilitate monitoring of progress and setbacks over time;
4. reveal new and evolving threats to the rights and safeguards underpinning the right to a fair trial;
5. foster communication and collaboration between NGOs, law firms, academia, international corporations and governments, facilitating knowledge sharing and joint efforts to tackle existing gaps in the implementation of the right to a fair trial; and
6. provide data and evidence to support advocacy efforts and policymaking at the national, regional and international levels.

Timeline

In 2021, Fair Trials Europe and Freshfields launched the Fair Trials Index to score criminal justice systems on their fairness and compliance with international human rights standards. The preliminary research began in 2024. Currently, the project is entering the main research stage, which involves developing the Index’s data-analysis methodology. The project is aimed to run until 2028 in its design stage.

Contact information

If you are interested to learn more about the project, please do not hesitate to contact our project manager, Lilla Hegyi Ozorakova, at lillahegyiozorakova@fairtials.net.