Administrative Justice and Decision-Making under the Prevent and Channel Duties

Blackbourn, Jessie

Abstract

Administrative justice can be described as having three strands: “getting it right”, which focuses on initial decision-making; “putting it right”, which relates to the redress mechanisms available in respect of initial decision-making; and “setting it right”, which entails the broader accountability mechanisms that surround the institutions and agencies responsible for the first two strands. This tripartite system of administrative justice rests on the idea that administrative decisions can be “got right”, and if not, that they can be “put right” or “set right”. This article discusses one set of decisions which challenge this; those taken under the Prevent and Channel duties, established by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. These duties confer new decision-making powers on frontline workers in public authorities to identify, assess and support individuals at risk of being drawn into terrorism. The article argues that in the first instance, it is not clear that decisions taken under the Prevent Duty constitute administrative decisions subject to the principles of administrative justice, but that it is necessary to consider them through this lens because of the way the two duties interact; it is not possible for decisions to be taken under the Channel Duty without prior decisions being made under the Prevent Duty. The article then argues that it is difficult to identify what a “right” decision might look like in the context of these two duties, and that this has significant implications for the mechanisms of redress that constitute the second strand of the administrative justice system. The article shows that the available redress mechanisms do not map neatly onto this type of decision-making and so do not adequately address the harms that individuals have experienced. This leaves the final strand of administrative justice: accountability mechanisms. This article evaluates the Independent Review of Prevent and argues that it has not been able to “set right” the process of decision-making under the two duties because it has not adequately addressed the issue of what “getting it right” might look like in this context. By mapping the administrative justice system in the United Kingdom onto the Prevent and Channel duties, the article reveals that the general principles to improve first-instance decision-making are unable to account for the complex reality of the particularly thorny and sensitive policy context of counter-terrorism.

Citation

Blackbourn, J. (in press). Administrative Justice and Decision-Making under the Prevent and Channel Duties. Public Law,

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 4, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 4, 2025
• Journal: Public Law
• Print ISSN: 0033-3565
• Publisher: Sweet and Maxwell
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Administrative justice; Prevent Duty; Channel Duty; frontline decision-making; ‘getting it right’; ‘putting it right’; ‘setting it right’
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3671596