‘Judicialization of corruption’ in Ghana: an analysis of how Ghanaians view the Office of the Special Prosecutor

Abstract

Anti-corruption agencies in Ghana have failed over the years to deal with corruption and also take decisive steps in tackling the menace. For this reason, inter alia, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government in 2018 established the Office of the Special Prosecutor as an institutional response to deal assertively with the issue of corruption. This action expanded the scope and discourse on the fight against corruption in Ghana. Following from this, the paper conceptualised the new institutional endeavour to control corruption in Ghana, simply as the ‘judicialization of corruption’. By judicializing corruption, the paper meant to portray a phenomenon where there is the use of judiciary and judicial processes in fighting corruption. Coming on the back of a political campaign promise, the paper seemly tested Ghanaian voters’ view on this new anti-corruption arrangement by the government and puts forward a broad-spectrum of views by voters regarding the creation of the OSP. The paper used mixed method to triangulate both qualitative and quantitative data. The result showed majority of voters backing government’s idea to create the OSP albeit a sizeable number perceiving the OSP as a mere conduit to ‘witch-hunt’ erstwhile government officials.