The Liberties Rule of Law Report 2022 is the third annual report on the state of rule of law in the European Union (EU) published by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) – the most in-depth reporting exercise to date on the rule of law in the EU by an NGO net- work. The report, jointly drafted by Liberties and its national member and partner organi- sations, is a ‘shadow report’ to the European Commission’s annual rule of law audit, aimed at providing the Commission with reliable information and analysis from the ground to use in its annual audit, besides offering an independent analysis of the state of the rule of law in its own right.

The report lays out the most striking develop- ments concerning the rule of law and democracy in 2021 in 17 countries across the EU. More than 30 civil society organisations from across the EU contributed to the research, which looked into a wide range of areas including the functioning of justice systems, the anticor- ruption framework, media freedom, pluralism and safety of journalists, checks and balances, civic space and human rights defenders and systemic human rights violations affecting the rule of law environment.

Besides pulling together all the individual country reports drafted by member and partner organisations, the report includes an overview

of general trends on the rule of law in the EU compiled by Liberties. It also formulates detailed recommendations addressed to both national government and the EU institutions on how to address the shortcomings iden- tified in each of the areas covered, and sug- gests a series of improvements the European Commission could make to enhance the usefulness and impact of its annual rule of law monitoring exercise.