The Independent Review of Uk Terrorism Law
| Author | David Anderson |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/203228441400500402 |
| Subject Matter | Analysis and Opinions |
432 Intersentia
ANALYSIS AND OPINIONS
THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW
OF UK TERRORISM LAW
D A
Independent review of the operation of UK anti-terrorism laws fuses three concepts
unremarkable in themselves, but radical in combination. A person is selected on the
basis of independence from Government; given unrestricted access to classi ed
documents and national security personnel; and his conclusions – favourable or
otherwise – promptly publ ished not just to Ministers but to Parliament and the
general public.
Any Government that invites review on those terms deserves respect simply for
doing so. Approval from the Independent Reviewer is wor th having, because t hat
person has a full u nderstanding both of the threat and of the measures ta ken to
combat it. But criticism has the potentia l to be devastating, for the same reasons. By
accepting review of t his kind, Ministers make it ha rder for themselves to use the age-
old brush-o : “If you had seen what I have seen…”. e Independent Reviewer has
seen what they have seen and, unconstrained by the disciplines or loyalties of o ce,
has every reason – unle ss he has gone rogue or gone native – to tell it as it is.
1. ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT REVIEW
e spu r for this fo rm of post-leg islative sc rutiny was the spread of No rthern Ire land-
related terrorism into Great Britain, closely followed by anti-terrorism laws. On
21November 1974 the Birmingham pub bombings killed 21 people, doubling the
IRA’s death toll in Great Britain for the year. Eight days later, the rst Prevention of
Terrorism (Temporar y Provisions) Act completed its parliamentary passage. B ased on
older precedents,1 that Act proscribed the IR A and made display of support for it
illegal.It enabled the mak ing of exclusion orders restricting persons to the terr itory of
either Great Britain or, more usually, Northern Ireland. It gave the police wide new
powers of arrest and detention, and further powers to conduct securit y checks on
* Q.C., UK Independent Rev iewer of Terrorism Legislation .
is is an update d, shortened and amended version of an ar ticle published in Public Law in Ju ly
2014, itself based on a lect ure given to the Statute L aw Society in London on 24Febr uary 2014. I am
grateful to Je ssie Blackbourn, Mitc h Hanley, Daniel Isenberg a nd Clive Walker for their a ssistance.
1 In particular, th e Prevention of Violence (Temporary Prov isions) Act 1939.
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