FNF Malaysia

The Freedom Barometer comprises three categories or components covering the following fields: political freedom, rule of law and economic freedom. The degree of political freedom is measured by the level of free and fair elections, the absence of undemocratic veto players, and the freedom of the press. Free and fair elections are the basis of a democracy. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) puts emphasis on this element by declaring: “Electoral processes play a central role in democracy, based on the principle that the electoral process is integral to wider political processes and are not just a single technical event.” In addition, particularly in reference to unconsolidated democracies (for example in Asia), undemocratic veto players (e.g. the military) often disturb democratic processes and therefore this aspect is included in the Freedom Barometer as a variable. Press freedom is the third component of political freedom. Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights underlines: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Due to the highly political nature of the media, this variable forms part of our political freedom dimension.

In terms of rule of law, the Freedom Barometer comprises the following variables: independence of courts and checks and balances, the level of corruption, and human rights protection. Independence of the judiciary constitutes an elementary part of freedom of the individual or as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demands: “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.” As independence of the courts and checks and balances are mutually dependent, both aspects are combined in one variable. Without an independent Constitutional Court or other legal institution true separation of powers is impossible. Corruption contradicts equal treatment and represents a violation of the rule of law. High levels of corruption correlate negatively with high levels of judicial integrity. Thus, both factors are highly interlinked. Human rights protection, as a fundamental element of freedom, constitutes the third variable of the rule of law dimension. Without rule of law there cannot be effective human rights. Without the presence of human rights rule of law is unthinkable. The Freedom Barometer 2009 contains all dimensions of the embedded democracy model.

The relationship between positive economic development and a functioning democracy is a widely accepted fact. This is one of the major findings of theEconomic Freedom of the World reports and the reason for the inclusion of this report’s data in the Freedom Barometer Asia 2009. However, of the five aggregate variables we included only four. This mainly had to do with the nature of the “access to sound money” indicator which seemed to have little bearing on the political economy as a major factor in the determination of a democracy’s quality. The four included variables are: security of property rights, size of government (expenditures, taxes, and enterprises), regulation of credit, labour and business as well as the freedom to trade internationally. These are major rallying points for liberals around the world.

The liberal bent of the Freedom Barometer Asia 2009 manifests itself in several aspects, as mentioned above. We particularly like to see the two variables of property rights and human rights protection as such an expression of liberalism. In the latter we expressly included the application of the death penalty and deviated in some cases from our source data if the respective country had not yet abolished this inhumane practice.

Table: Ranking of the evaluated nations (100 best, 0 worst; markings = incomplete results)
1     Japan      83.05
2     Taiwan      77.16
3     South Korea      76.65
4     Singapore      64.96
5     Indonesia      64.23
6     Thailand      57.83
7     Malaysia      56.55
8     Philippines      56.34
9     Vietnam      42.73
10     China      42.28
11     Cambodia      22.30*
12     Brunei      18.00*
13     Myanmar      15.74
14     Laos      12.00*
15     North Korea      00.00*