This paper examines how from 1964 to 2001 civil control of the military was enshrined in the Constitution of Zambia, Constitution Act 1964, article 100. It also examines how the Zambian Parliament used its legislative powers to control the behaviour, administration and activities of the military, to legalise government’s declaration of a permanent state of public emergency between 1964 and 1992 in the face of external aggression from neighbouring colonial states, and how Parliament used its powers of budgetary allocation and supervision through parliamentary committees to control defence expenditure.