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" THE PRIMACY OF FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAW THE PRIMACY OF FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAW IN NATIONAL SECURITY By Kamran Adil, Police Service of Pakistan Modern states use their coercive authority through criminal law, which derives its legality and legitimacy through constitutional law. This linkage between a state's penal and coercive power and its criminal law is not only to be found in Western democracies, but is also part of statecraft in countries like China and Russian, which apparently don't follow the rule of law paradigm yet have their own set of criminal laws in place. In this context, it must be noted that state (and not the government) of Pakistan can and should link its national security discourse with criminal law to equip itself with lawful powers that sustain the constitutional tests in judicial reviews before the courts and also to ensure that certainty and severity of state actions and sanctions are applied with full force. This is, however, not so straightforward. In practice, the binary of federal and provincial is invoked. Most often than not, it is told that criminal law is in the domain of provinces. This is done by masking and labelling criminal law as 'law and order', which term is alien to the Constitution of Pakistan. 'Law and order' is not a legal term and is, at best, an administrative term, which should not be made basis of dividing constitutional roles between the federation and the provinces. The more specialized, constitutional and legal term of 'criminal law' serves the national security better due to the dynamic nature of the security threats that express themselves in non-traditional and less territorial terms. Owing to the latest national security concerns, the centrality and primacy of criminal law in meeting national security requirements cannot…