The Constitution gives the armed forces one duty outside the country and a conditional one inside it. Which provision turns the instrument inward, who may call for it, which forces actually arrive, and who is left able to review them.
A note on this piece: the Institute describes constitutional provisions, statutes and reported judgments. It names no individual, refers to no pending proceeding, and takes no view on the merits of any deployment. Where the practical balance between civil and military authority is contested, it points to sources on more than one side.
A state does two different things with organised force. It defends a border against another state, which needs an instrument built for concentration, secrecy and speed. And it keeps order among its own citizens, who keep their rights against it while it does so, which needs an instrument built for restraint and evidence. Almost every constitution lets the first be used for the second job. The question is never whether — it is how far, on whose authority, for how long, and reviewable by whom.
Article 243(1) provides that "the Federal Government shall have control and command of the Armed Forces." The same Article vests supreme command in the President, gives the President power to raise and maintain the forces, and provides for the appointment of the service chiefs — since the Eighteenth Amendment substituted the Article in 2010, on the advice of the Prime Minister.
It was rewritten again by the Constitution (Twenty-seventh Amendment) Act, 2025, assented to on 13 November 2025, which abolished the office of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and created a Chief of Defence Forces held by the Chief of the Army Staff. Dawn's explainer records that the service chiefs are still appointed on the Prime Minister's advice; the analysis published by ConstitutionNet calls the amendment a cementing of executive and military dominance. Either way, Article 243 only says who the armed forces answer to, not when they may be used inside the country.
That is Article 245, and the subject turns on one sentence of it. Article 245(1): "The Armed Forces shall, under the directions of the Federal Government, defend Pakistan against external aggression or threat of war, and, subject to law, act in aid of civil power when called upon to do so."
Two duties sit in that sentence, drafted differently. The first is unconditional. The second is conditional three times over: it is subject to law, so it needs a statute to work through; it is in aid of civil power, not in place of it; and it arises only when called upon.
That statute is mostly the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Section 4 makes it lawful for the Federal Government to order the presence of the armed forces and civil armed forces and to direct their posting by notification in the official Gazette, on a provincial government's request. Section 5 sets out what they may then do — use force after warning, arrest without warrant, search without warrant — subject to Chapter IX of the Criminal Procedure Code.
In practice this is a rolling administrative act, not one decision. Dawn reported on 6 April 2019 that the Sindh government had approved a ninety-day extension of the Rangers' special powers in Karachi under section 4(2), with a summary sent to the federal Ministry of Interior. The province asks, the federation authorises, the clock runs, and it happens again.
Every constitution lets the external instrument be turned inward. All the differences are in the conditions.
The clauses that matter most to a citizen were not in the 1973 text. Section 4 of the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1977, assented to on 16 May 1977, renumbered the original Article as clause (1) and inserted three clauses beneath it.
The central one is Article 245(3): "a High Court shall not exercise any jurisdiction under Article 199 in relation to any area in which the Armed Forces of Pakistan are, for the time being, acting in aid of civil power," subject to a proviso preserving proceedings already pending when they start.
| Clause | Effect |
|---|---|
| 245(1) | Defend against external aggression; act in aid of civil power, subject to law and only when called upon |
| 245(2) | The direction itself cannot be questioned in any court |
| 245(3) | Article 199 writ jurisdiction closes to a High Court in that area, except for pending proceedings |
| 245(4) | Proceedings begun after the deployment starts are suspended while it lasts |
Read alone, that looks like an off switch for judicial review. Reported judgments have read it far more narrowly. Striking down the Pakistan Armed Forces (Acting in Aid of Civil Power) Ordinance, 1998 in a judgment reported at PLD 1999 SC 504, the Supreme Court held there was "no statute, law or any provision of the Constitution conferring jurisdiction on the Military Courts, to try the civilians." It read Article 245 as a provision that "does not by itself create the law but enables the making of a law," and held the suspension in clause (3) "clearly is not attracted to proceedings under Article 184(3)." One door closes; the Supreme Court's does not.
Dawn noted on 29 July 2014, reviewing that year's deployment debate, that in Niaz Ahmed Khan v Province of Sindh (PLD 1977 Karachi 604) and Darwesh M. Arbey v Federation of Pakistan (PLD 1980 Lahore 206) the courts held Article 245 could not be used by a political government to rule through the armed forces — acting in aid of civil power presupposes a civil power "still there, neither supplanted nor effaced out."
An internal deployment usually does not bring the Army. It brings a civil armed force: a federal uniformed service that is neither army nor police. The Frontier Corps is constituted under the Frontier Corps Ordinance, 1959. Section 3 provides that it is maintained by the Federal Government "primarily for the better protection and administration of the external frontiers of Pakistan"; section 7 vests its "superintendence of and command and control" in the Federal Government. In the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor in July 2008, Tariq Mahmud Ashraf recorded that oversight rests with the federal Ministry of Interior and that its entire officer cadre is provided by Pakistan Army officers seconded for two to three years. The Pakistan Rangers, constituted under the Pakistan Rangers Ordinance, 1959, sit in the same category — which is why their powers in Karachi are extended by a province but referred to a federal ministry.
The third force in that space has just been abolished. The Levies were Balochistan's district force, working under provincial officials in the areas classified as "B areas" rather than under the police. Dawn reported on 6 and 7 January 2026 that the province had completed their merger into the Balochistan Police — six divisions in October 2025, the last two in January 2026 — ending the A-area and B-area distinction and placing the merged force under the Balochistan Police Act, 2011.
That merger was a provincial decision because policing is a provincial matter. Police sat on the Concurrent Legislative List until the Eighteenth Amendment abolished it in 2010, leaving the residual legislative power in Article 142 with the Provincial Assemblies. In the RSIL Law Review in 2019, Jamal Aziz and Minahil Khan wrote that police thereafter falls largely within provincial competence, while noting that Article 142(b), which leaves criminal law and procedure to both legislatures, creates real ambiguity at the edges.
The provinces then went four different ways, which is itself the evidence that the subject is theirs. The same study records the Balochistan Police Act, 2011 repealing the Police Order, 2002 outright, the Punjab Police Order (Amendment) Act, 2013, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Act, 2017, which repealed only what was relatable to the provincial field. Sindh repealed the Order in 2011 and revived the Police Act, 1861, then reversed itself in 2019, reviving the Order "as if it had never been repealed" from 13 July 2011.
The decision rights are genuinely split, and the split is in the text. The province legislates for its police and asks for help; the Federal Government directs the armed forces and the civil armed forces. Article 148(3) makes it "the duty of the Federation to protect every Province against external aggression and internal disturbances." Article 147 lets a province entrust its own functions to the Federation with that government's consent — and a proviso added in 2010 requires the Provincial Assembly to ratify that within sixty days.
The furthest the external instrument has been turned inward is not deployment but adjudication. The 1999 judgment set the baseline: military courts could not try civilians without lawful jurisdiction to do so.
Parliament then created it. The Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Act, 2015, passed on 6 January 2015 and assented to the next day, amended Article 175(3) and added the Pakistan Army Act, 1952, the Pakistan Air Force Act, 1953, the Pakistan Navy Ordinance, 1961 and the Protection of Pakistan Act, 2014 to the First Schedule, with a two-year sunset clause. In District Bar Association, Rawalpindi v Federation of Pakistan, a bench of seventeen judges dismissed the challenges by majority in 2015, while a majority also held that Parliament's amending power is subject to limits the Court can enforce. The Constitution (Twenty-third Amendment) Act, 2017 revived the arrangement in March 2017 for two more years.
Then it lapsed. The International Commission of Jurists stated on 1 April 2019 that the jurisdiction had expired on 30 March 2019 without renewal, and recorded — from military sources and its own monitoring since January 2015 — 617 convictions, 346 of them death sentences and 271 prison sentences, with at least 56 people executed and four acquitted. Those are the Commission's figures, not an official return.
The documents settle a great deal: who commands, what must happen before the forces act internally, which court's door closes and which stays open, which forces are federal, who legislates for the police. They do not settle the practical balance, and on that this Institute presents the argument rather than a verdict. In The Army and Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2014), Aqil Shah argues that weak national cohesion and an enduring security anxiety about India let the military become the dominant political actor and arrested the growth of democratic institutions. In Crossed Swords (Oxford University Press, 2008), Shuja Nawaz spreads responsibility more widely, across conflicts between civilian and military leaderships and within each. Both are serious accounts and they do not agree.
What the text can answer is narrower. How far inward? Only in aid of civil power, which presupposes a civil power still standing. On whose authority? A direction of the Federal Government, under a statute, in practice on a provincial request. For how long? For the period a notification or a sunset clause allows — ninety days, two years, until the next one. Reviewable by whom? Not a High Court under Article 199 in that area, and not, on the face of clause (2), as to the direction itself — but not, on the Supreme Court's own holding, beyond Article 184(3).
Ask those four of any deployment and you are asking what the Constitution was written to answer. Ask "is this allowed?" and you get an argument instead.