The coercive apparatus and the state – control and supervision over special services

Intelligence and counterintelligence services are an essential element of the proper functioning of the state. Due to the practice and nature of their activities (procedures, measures, methods, and techniques that are, by their very nature, classified), it is extremely important that they remain under constant control and supervision by the state institutions appointed for this purpose. The implementation of these mechanisms may be threatened by a lack of balance in the mutual relations between the special services and political decision-makers, as well as by the lack of appropriate procedures and legal instruments regulating these relations. Such situations can lead to dangerous abuses. The starting point of this article is a discussion of the causes of pathologies at the interface between the government and agencies (special services), followed by a presentation of the issue of effective control and supervision of special services in democratic regimes.