CORRUPTION, GOVERNANCE REFORM AND THE RULE OF LAW ORTHODOXY: RESOLVING UNSOLVED QUAGMIRES

CORRUPTION, GOVERNANCE REFORM, AND THE RULE OF LAW ORTHODOXY: RESOLVING UNSOLVED QUAGMIRES Abstract As a quintessential governance vice, corruption remains endemic in Ghana. After years of sustained reforms within the governance architecture and the public services of Ghana generally, the pervasive persistence of corruption continues to pose puzzling questions bordering on the effectiveness of the governance reform agenda and the toolkits used in addressing the act in the country. Significantly in this context, the rule of law has emerged as the preeminent instrument of choice in the fight against corruption within the reform models adopted and this has resulted in the passage of legislations and establishment of legal institutions to deal with the menace of corruption. Central to this model is the assumption that, legal formalism is efficacious and has the capacity to rein in corrupt behavior regardless of the nuances and complexities of its manifestation. This supposition has clearly failed given the growing ubiquity of corruption in Ghana and the obvious failure of law and legal institutions to effectively combat, suppress and possibly eliminate the practice altogether from the body politic of the country. The implementation model of insular legal formalism of the rule of law adopted in Ghana clearly seem problematic and remains impotent in the face of the worsening situation of corruption in Ghana. In this work, I argue and demonstrate that the rule of law strategy or model adopted remains both ineffective and out of tune with the complicated realities of corruption in Ghana and that this explains the reason for the growing spate of corruption in Ghana. I conclude by recommending the adoption of a mixed multi-purpose model in which the use of the formalist version of the rule of law will be situated within a framework of softer regulatory and non-legal variables including the adoption of nudges.