Democracy equates with strong legislatures

A couple of American academics, Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig, have completed a study ranking the power of 158 national legislatures globally. The strength of legislatures was measured using four factors: influence over the executive, autonomy, vested powers and the capacity to do things (like hiring staff). The correlation is that countries with strong legislatures have more resilient democracies. Weak legislatures cannot keep executives in check. The United States was outranked by 40 other countries. I have no information where Canada stood, but based on the criteria, I would think that Canada would rate higher, which, prior to this study, I would have found surprising.

The Paradox

Now here is a statement that puzzles me. In my January post regarding Israel and other Muslims states, I received a comment from Tossing Pebbles in the Stream to the effect that Israel should be held to a higher moral standard because it purports to be a secular, liberal democracy. I have heard this kind of utterance before, but what is interesting to me is that the blogger in this instance is an ordained minister in the Christian faith.

If I understand people who believe in the existence of a sky-god, they also believe that this god made mankind and that this god's laws are superior to any laws made by mere mortal man. It would stand to reason that a state that governed itself in accordance with god's laws should be held to higher moral standard than a mere liberal democracy. However, if you examine the human rights record of some states that govern themselves in accordance with god's laws (e.g. Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia) you would be forced to conclude that a liberal democracy is far superior.