Dura lex sed lex

1. Lawyers actually like this principle. They seem to treat it as the cornerstone of the rule of law. No matter what you privately think about certain regulations you are obliged to uphold them. Privately you might think, as many do, that cannabis is OK, but as a policeman you are obliged to arrest people for selling cannabis, or perhaps (I am not sure about the details) even for possessing large quantities of it.
Mind you, you have uphold a law which you think is immoral or simply impractical, even if you are a judge. You need to be objective, your private views must not cloud your judgment. Cruel law but law – said the Romans, and we still think the Romans are right.
In fact, only the legislators are allowed to have doubts and actually change the law they consider immoral. Personally, I find it surprising, because politicians usually have no morals.
2. On the other hand, we are not immediately forgiving, if a war criminal says: “I had to kill people at Katyn (Auschwitz), because I needed to follow orders. Orders are law in war, and not all of them are legally questionable, because the first thing dictators or cruel, angry mob do is to introduce a law of their own.
So we have a philosophical paradox, if there ever was one. Cruel law but law nevertheless. This may as well be true. But does it give you the license to be cruel.