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In 2024, Georgia had the highest Rule of Law Index score among all European Union candidate countries, while Turkey had the lowest. The rule of law is a fundamental principle of the EU, which states that countries should be bound by the legal system to not exercise arbitrary power, with regard to both their citizens and other states. Issues which negatively affect a countries rule of law score would be human rights abuses, discrimination, corruption, attacks on the independence of the judiciary, or abuses of executive power by the head of state/government. 

The rule of law is considered a fundamental issue in the negotiations between the EU and candidate countries, as the candidates must show that they are democratic and follow the EU's concept of law-bound governance. This is particularly an issue as some EU member states have exhibited democratic backsliding and breaches of the rule of law in recent years, meaning that the EU is more concerned with whether a country has built durable institutions which will safeguard the rule of law once inside the union, such as an independent judiciary with the power to hold policymakers to account. The rule of law has been citied as a key reason why negotiations between the EU and Turkey on membership have been frozen since 2021.