Accountability and Review in the Counter‐Terrorist State. By Jessie Blackbourn, Fiona De Londras,Lydia MorganBristol: Bristol University Press, 2020, 192 pp., £27.99
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12282 |
| Author | CHRISTOS BOUKALAS |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
DOI: ./j ols.
BOOK REVIEW
Accountability and Review in the
Counter-Terrorist State
JESSIE BLACKBOURN FIONA DE LONDRAS LYDIA MORGAN
Bristol: Bristol University Press, , pp., £.
Accountability and Review in the Counter-Terrorist State examines the mechanism that reviews
United Kingdom (UK) counterterrorism policy – the first study to do so. It is a review of a review
assemblage. By its very existence, this work points to a problem: the review of a key policy area
with multifarious effects on everything from human rights to banking, has, for over years, been
ad hoc, fragmented, and scattered across official, quasi-official, and unofficial bodies – an assem-
blage of mechanisms that needs a dedicated study to fathom. A study that addresses this problem
– that helps its reader navigate the mazy and haphazard compound that, somehow, performs a
crucial constitutional function – is gratefully received for this reason alone. This work, however,
offers more than a mapping of the counterterrorism review territory. It addresses the practices,
relations, and attitudes that define counterterrorism review.Crucially, it contextualizes the place
and importance of review in the juridico-political constellation and evaluates its performance
from a constitutional viewpoint. Essentially, this work highlights and addresses a constitutional
mismatch. The UK has developed into a ‘counter-terrorist state’: a form of state in which coun-
terterrorism policy is pre-eminent, pervades many areasof political, legal, and social practice, and
implicates citizens’ rights and liberties. This ‘counter-terrorist state’ is reviewed by an amorphous
‘jumble’ of mechanisms (p. ) that lacks consistency and unity and has limited ability to influ-
ence counterterrorism policy or to even know it. This is a typical mismatch between a powerful,
potentially draconian, state and a flimsy control apparatus. The authors conceptualize this mis-
match in constitutional terms as an accountability deficit. The question then is whether the review
mechanism can ameliorate this deficit or,conversely, provide a fig leaf serving to legitimize a state
that is effectively beyond control.
To assess the constitutional potency of the review assemblage, the authors first need to find it.
This is not easy. Apart from judicial review, with its familiar processes and its familiarly limited
results,the ‘jumble’ comprises a host of mechanisms that mushroom within the Executive,
Parliament, and the judiciary; an Independent Reviewer of parts of counterterrorism legislation;
and bodies that review agencies heavily involved in counterterrorism (for example, the police) or
are charged with monitoring the counterterrorism compliance of public institutions (for example,
Office for Students). These entities emerge in different ways and address different aspects of coun-
terterrorism, through different methods, for different purposes. They lack unity – of structure or
© The Author.Journal of Law and Society © Cardiff University Law School
F. Davisand F. de Londras (eds), Critical Debates on Counter-Terrorism Judicial Review ().
J. Law Soc. ;:–. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jols 125
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