Just as some think they are above the law because they can buy their way out of it, some think they are above the law because they enforce the laws. Through influence, political power, being in office, or sheer force, they believe that the law does not apply to them, or will allow them to do as they please. This is especially done by or in reference to the kinds of things that the laws are intended to protect against - corruptpolicemen, politicians, gang leaders and the like. They can also said to be "a law unto themselves".
Often expressed by the comment, "I am the (insert governing body here)!" (but saying it is not enough, there has to be some authority the character has). Probably inspired by "L'Etat, c'est moi" (I am the State.) from Louis XIV (although he may not have actually said it).
To count as this trope, it needs to meet these points:
Bob is charged with enforcing the rules.
Bob does things not even he is allowed to do, because he now feels he is above the rules.
What this is not:
Abuse of authority that one actually has.
Being granted permission to be above rules most other people must follow.
In G Gundam, whichever nation is hosting the Gundam Fight (namely, the winner of the previous fight) has the right to change the Official Regulations as they see fit. Neo-Hong Kong's prime minister Wong Yunfat takes advantage of this to a ludicrous degree, first rescinding the Thou Shalt Not Kill rule and then setting Domon up in matches specifically with the intent of killing him. One fight has Domon contend with a comically large electromagnet that pins his Gundam to the ground, and another has him forced to fight an ally in a cage match where the ring is full of time bombs that will kill them both unless they fight for real.
Maximillion Pegasus of Yu-Gi-Oh! is an interesting example. He doesn't technically break the rules (nowhere in the rule book does it forbid using an enchanted piece of Egyptian bling to read your opponent's mind), but he certainly abuses his position as creator of Duel Monsters, stacking his deck with rare and dangerous cards, several of which were never released to the public because Pegasus himself felt they were too powerful for general circulation. Given that he constantly calls people like Keith on their own cheating, it's pretty hypocritical.
Filler VillainNoahKaiba does the same thing. As the ruler of the Virtual World, Noah is able to enforce all of his Deck Master rules, frequently calling out his henchmen, The Big 5, when they either a) cheat in duels or b) attempt to leave the Virtual World without having first won a duel. Yet during his matches against Kaiba and Yugi/Yami, Noah cheats repeatedly, using Kaiba's brother as a shield against his attacks, and making up new rules for his Deck Master every ten seconds. When he's actually beaten by Yami, he steals Mokuba's body despite not having won a duel, and tries to escape into the real world, something he himself forbid The Big 5 from doing.
Though when The Big 5 take over Tristan's body, Noah does let them cheat. While there's nothing saying you can't fuse your Deckmaster with another monster, The Big 5 fuse all their own Deckmasters together, despite only being one player.
Tsunade of Naruto, having founded the medical corps, has a specific set of rules for them that boil down to "heal your friends, don't get in fights that might end in you dying". The only exception to this rule is if the medic has mastered the Byakugo technique. A technique which only she possesses.
At the beginning of the Sora Unchained arc of Ah! My Goddess, Chihiro assumes full control of the challenge competition over whether or not Sora can refuse her appointment to be Keichii's successor as head of the Nekomi Motor Club under Article 26, Clause 5 of the Motor Club rules, which places said authority in the control of the President Emeritus (Namely, her). When Belldandy points out that Article 26 only has four clauses, Chihiro grabs the rulebook and a pen and adds clause five on the spot. Nobody even tries to call her out on this.
Comic Books
Both Presidents from Transmetropolitan have said that "If the President does it, it's not a crime" to justify their actions. While The Beast was being somewhat ironic, his successor was apparently dead serious. This was a reference to a certain President Richard Nixon, who famously said something similar.
Averted by Judge Dredd, despite his catchphrase of "I am the law", which would usually be a dead give away. He is ruthlessly strict about adhering to the laws of Megacity One, and the conflicts this sometimes cause with his sense of justice have provided some of the series' richest Character Development. In Dredd's case, this catchphrase refers to his absolute authority to punish violations of the law as he sees fit, not to making his own laws. On the contrary, in one storyline where he is authorized to make law on the spot to achieve the government's goals, he's very uncomfortable about it. The idea of the law being consistent and not playing favorites is very import to him, after all.
Of course, Chief Judges have been known to play it straight, particularly Cal, MacGruder, Silver and Sinfield.
The Roarke family from Sin City: a Catholic cardinal, a senator, a surgeon general, and a serial killer. They're considered the most powerful family in the city... and possibly the country.
Aunty Entity: You think I don't know the law? Wasn't it me who wrote it?"
Councillor Dupont from Equilibrium, the former leader "Father" died and Dupont has been pretending to be him ever since and just started making up any old laws he pleased. He's also a "sense offender", breaking one of the major laws their society was built upon, one he enforces as severely as possible putting people to death without trial while ignoring it himself.
As Denzel Washington's character in Training Day put it, "I am the police! King Kong ain't got shit on me!"
Bruce Willis' General character in The Siege plays it straight, bellowing "I AM the law! Right here, right now, I am the law!" at Denzel Washington when he tries to arrest him for murder, which was not covered under the martial law he had been tasked with. It's worth pointing out the Willis' General had actually protested against being given authority under martial law as being a bad idea in the first place, although it appears his perception and self-assessment disappeared once he was given it. [[Alternatively Alternative Character Interpretation]], it could be seen as Briar Patching, that he was against it simply so that he would be in charge of it once it was approved anyway.
The entire point of Lakeview Terrace is that the deranged neighbor that cruelly harasses the protagonists is a cop, and the other cops are more likely to back him up in a "my word against his" situation.
Famously uttered by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. Mace Windu confronts Chancellor Palpatine in his office in order to arrest him for being a Sith Lord and tells him that the Senate will decide his fate, to which Palpatine replies, "I AM THE SENATE.", in a low and intimidating voice. Palpatine now revealed as Darth Sidious kills three of the Jedi's best swordsmen (under Yoda, Anakin, Windu and Obi-Wan of course, but still celebrated swordsmen) in mere seconds and is climatically "defeated" by Windu in time for Anakin to arrive and "save" him. Darth Vader is born and Palpatine's plan to kill the Jedi is validated by the Senate under the pretense that the Jedi tried to assassinate him.
Darth Sidious: I will make it legal.
This is also literally true of Palpatine. Because the Senate granted him emergency powers, his boast is one he is quite within his legal rights to carry out.
A sweeter-natured one came about in the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America. After the prince has refused his Arranged Marriage, gone to America to seek a bride, and endured all sorts of comedic trials to win her, his parents are left scratching their heads. She's a nice girl and all, but she's American and definitely not royalty. As the king is pointing this out, the queen invokes this trope. Cut to the massive royal wedding of the prince and his American bride!
In this case, it's not so much the rules that the king is reluctant to break but tradition. Since this is a monarchy, tradition is a big part of its culture.
And similarly, Minister Fudge with his "Laws can be changed!" when he clearly is circumventing the legal lawmaking process.
Which was actually hilarious, because the invoked law was necessary self-defense. So Fudge meant that he could change the law so that when you're attacked in Muggle territory, it would be illegal to defend yourself!
Arthur Weasley could also be this as he enchanted a car because of loophole in the law he made himself.
In Brave New World World Controller Mustopha Mond, responding to Bernard's shock that he owns banned books, explains that "As I make the rules, I can also break them. With impunity, Mr. Marx, which I'm afraid you cannot do."
Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork in the Discworld novels, can say this, although he prefers not to. Anyway, he has established legal precedent going thousands of years on his side, namely "Ergo sic dico."
Vetinari: The law must be obeyed, Miss Dearheart. Even tyrants have to obey the law. [Beat] No, I tell a lie, tyrants do not have to obey the law, obviously, but they do have to observe the niceties. At least, I do.
Subverted (most of the time) by Sam Vimes, because he knows where breaking the rules it would sometimes be convenient to break would lead. He's seen people go there. He's not going.
Subverted in the Corean Chronicles. When Mykel's wastrel brother Venicet shows up in Tempre and expects to be given a cushy court position just because he's the brother of the newly declared Lord Protector, Mykel flat out tells him that he couldn't provide his brother with a steady income unless he was willing to take a steady job, as this was the rule he had laid down for everyone else, and as ruler he couldn't decree one thing and do something else. Then he gave his brother what pocket change he had on him and showed him the door.
A twist in The Warlock In Spite Of Himself by Christopher Stasheff: Queen Katherine insists that the law says captured rebels must be executed, and therefore she cannot pardon them. It's her wiser advisors, realizing that the circumstances of the rebellion mean mercy would be the better ploy, who tell her, "The law of the land is the Queen" — setting a very bad precedent, but executing these rebels would cause major and possibly worse problems.
A more benign version occurs in the fifth Safehold book, How Firm a Foundation. Empress Sharleyan has arrived in Corisande to pronounce sentencing on the traitors of the Northern Conspiracy. However, while the law is clear on their guilt and their punishment, Sharleyan uses her royal perogative to pardon those who were blackmailed, threatened, duped, or just too angry or foolish to realize what they were getting into.
In Animal Farm, the dictator pig Napoleon rewrites the original constitution of Animal Farm multiple times to make his actions legal (since most animals are dumber than pigs, they didn't realise the secret rewritings). Eventually all the laws on equality and freedoms are reduced to one, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
In The Hunger Games, the Gamemasters bring up the possibility of two victors in the normal There Can Be Only One challenge, only to revoke it when that possibility actually becomes reality. They didn't count on the survivors trying to commit suicide to spite them, so they flip-flopped again to prevent the two from becoming martyrs.
Live Action TV
"The Bank Shot Job" in the first season of Leverage centers around a corrupt small town judge who totally believes this trope will save him. It doesn't.
At the end of the Doctor Who episode The Waters of Mars, the Doctor (who up until this point has refused to save some humans whose deaths are part of history) breaks down and realizes that since he is last of the Time Lords, this trope applies to him: "Do you know who that leaves? ME!! It's taken me all these years to realize it, but all those laws of time are mine. And they will obey ME!!!". It...doesn't end very well. Next episode we learn that his entire race reached a similar conclusion, and that's why the Doctor had to wipe them out in the first place.
It's actually rather interesting to realize that in fact, he is virtually repeating, verbatim, what a certain friend of his has been saying for quite a while now...
Sam: I should do you in for speeding! You're not above the law, you know! Gene: What are you talking about, Tyler? I am the law!
Averted in the Babylon 5 episode "Atonement", when Delenn goes to her clan council to hear the verdict on her marriage even though she is the most powerful woman in Minbar. On the other hand she seemed to be willing to make Minbari policy practically by herself earlier. Perhaps the discrepancy can be Justified by saying the one was an unusual security crisis and the other was just a personal matter. Also these were her kin after all.
Knowing Delenn, she would have found some way of getting past an unfavorable decision no matter what. Fortunately, there was a convenient way of justifying her engagement to Sheridan.
Law & Order: SVU's characters do this sometimes. Elliot Stabler does this almost constantly. He regularly uses questionable or outright illegal interrogation techniques (Like threatening to break a suspect's neck,) uses his badge to try and get his daughter Kathleen out of trouble (At one point saying that her breaking into someone's house is a "harmless prank,") and generally fails to actually follow 90% of the rules that police officers are supposed to be following.
If it wasn't for his 97% closer rate, it is pretty clear he would have had the Turn In Your Badge speech a long time ago.
King Uther on Merlin in "The Crystal Cave". He has magic banned, yet orders Gaius to use it to save Morgana.
The reason why and how King Arthur marries Guinevere in Merlin. The fact that she's a servant girl in this version is only brought up a couple times, and poses virtually no obstacle for Arthur. He wants to marry this woman, so he does. No arguments.
When his father was king, in contrast, Arthur and Gwen had to keep their relationship secret.
Airwolf has this with Archangel giving a subordinate a lesson in Firm rules.
Archangel: You tried to kill me! Subordinate: I was Just Following The Rules. "If an agent becomes a threat to the Firm or the country, they are to be killed." Archangel: Don't you DARE quote the rules to me! I WROTE THEM! You can bet there's going to be an amendment that clearly states that that rule DOES NOT APPLY TO ME!
King Charles I: I am the king, I can do what I like! Start up a war, or a big tax hike! Got a French wife, she's a Catholic... Roundheads: Oh Lord! Really, King Charles, we're not quite sure... Charles: Insolence! Is that how you talk to the crown? I am the king, I'll just close parliament down! Roundhead: I think you'll find that's in breach of due process. Cavalier: Here's what we say to that: Pffft! Now, clear out this mess!
Scotty gets a great one in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Relics". He and Geordi are attempting to repair a beat up old rustbucket of a ship and tells Geordi to shunt some fuel to an auxiliary tank. Geordi protests that the system specs say doing so will blow everything up. Scotty, being the author of said specs, admits that "a good engineer is always a wee bit conservative, at least on paper" and that the procedure will work.
The heel General Managers aren't much better...and usually once they screw the rules too much, they're in line for a firing or a major beatdown from the face wrestler they've likely been feuding with for the past few months.
There have been matches where the Heel was allowed to alter the stipulations of the match, during the match, as many times as they want.
A running theme in pro wrestling is the claim that no one, not even the owner, can override a referee's decision. This is countered by the fact that the owner or GM can change the rules of the match, even retroactively. So the referee's ruling of a disqualification, for example, isn't overridden, it's just that it no longer matters because it just retroactively became a no disqualification match.
In the WWE, when Paul Heyman was a general manager, his first act was to put one of the faces into a match. Then no less than 4 times during the match, he'd grab a microphone and say "I'm Sorry, I forgot because it's my first day. This match is actually..." and he'd add another stipulation to the match.
A particularly egregious example would be the match between Chris Jericho and William Regal at Backlash 2001. Because Regal challenged Jericho to a "Duchess Of Queensbury Rules" match, and Jericho accepted without knowing what that was, it turned out that Regal was allowed to change the rules whenever he was about to lose. Possibly the worst pro wrestling example of Calvinball ever.
Religion
One of the major themes of the Problem of Evil (used in "God Is Evil" plots) asks whether God is allowed to do something that goes against his own code of morality. If he is, can he still be considered omnibenevolent? And it he can't, can he still be considered omnipotent? Usually the responses either 1. Yes, God has every capability to do actions against his morality, but he has no reason to. His power is such that he can solve any problem with benevolence, whether or not evil can do with malice. 2. Morality is defined by the dictates of God, so the question is meaningless. Plato would have a problem with this line of reasoning, but then again, he never thought his gods were omnibenevolent or omnipotent to begin with, or 3. Go away kid, ya bother me.
Tabletop Games
The Solar Exalted of the Exalted setting were the rulers of the world in the First Age. As the Great Curse laid upon them by their vanquished foes, the Primordials (titans) started to corrupt them more and more, their rule became more and more tyrannical and cruel. Note that within his domain, a Solar had the right to set almost anything that doesn't threaten the rule of Solars in general as a law, which resulted in some pretty horrible places to live, as well as some pretty... bizarre laws and customs (a whole region in the North where people acted like they lived in a musical!).
The player characters have this role in Dogs In The Vineyard — as they are commanded to represent the word of the Book of Life, they basically interpret what it means and enforce it as they see fit. Often with guns.
Paranoia makes a particular effort to encourage this attitude. Game Masters are encouraged (if the need arises) to roll the dice in plain view of all the players and deliberately ignore the results just to hammer the point home.
Happens a lot in universe too. Ultraviolet clearance clones are assumed to not only be above suspicion by the Computer, but also be the people who program the Computer and tell it what to think. (They've installed automatic safeguards against blatant "all the other Ultraviolets are traitors" programs, but that's about it.)
Referred to as Rule Zero in most P&P RPGs: The DM makes the rules.
Although most RPGs encourage the DM to be consistent about the rules.
The Golden Rule of Magic: The Gathering is "Sometimes a card contradicts the rules; if this occurs, the card text takes precedence."
Theater
Creon makes this argument to Haemon in Sophocles' Antigone. Naturally it all ends in tears, what with him forgetting that the Gods are more important than kings.
Video Games
Privately-run servers in video games are very prone to this trope.
Even some of the retail servers allow game-masters and moderators to screw the rules of the game...whether this counts is a bit more debatable, as they're usually not used to win anything, just to moderate.
A part of MUDs, where the people making the rules would often screw them.
Servers of games where you are kicked from hacking by moderators and administrators who are hacking themselves.
In Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, Godot frequently dictates the rules as he sees fit ("It's one of my rules."), even though he's technically a rookie prosecutor and this is his first case. The Judge goes along with it, due to Refuge in Audacity.
A running theme in Ace Attorney Investigations. The Phantom Thief Yatagarasu deliberately goes after people who put themselves above the law through money or political power. This is usually businesses, but it extends quite easily to Cohdopian ambassadors.
Redd White in the original game is said to be in such a position and he does attempt to flex his influence to ensure he gets his way in court but it fails miserably (can't use your influence to stop someone from using solid evidence to show you're a heartless liar).
In Oblivion: The Shivering Isles, at one point a guard will tell you that "Only Lord Sheogorath is above the law here." Of course, when you become Sheogorath, they'll still fine you/send you to a dungeon. Typical.
There's also Auden Avidius, a Imperial Watch Captain that is using his position to extort money from a few people, and if you call him out on it he'll put a 1000 gold bounty on your head. Getting Avidius arrested is one of the quests in the game.
Benevolent example in Breath of Fire II - a Wyndian with black wings is prophesied to bring about the ruin of their civilization, so all children born with black wings are put to death. When the king's daughter was born so, he vetoed this, imprisoning the one person who knew the secret and sending the child to be raised in a faraway town. Nina has strong black magic, but remains completely benign and a whole-hearted party member throughout the game.
Metal Gear Solid 3 has Colonel Volgin. His response to Ocelot after he killed Granin in a torture session speaks for itself.
As far as chain of command goes a Colonel does have command authority over a Major so he was the one calling the shots over that operation. His argument does kind of fall apart when you consider that he is a villain who just got through killing a brilliant scientist who created Metal Gear, the titular mecha of the series, when he had no solid evidence that he was a spy and tortured him to death on a whim. Not to mention wanting to start a war with the United States and toppling the current Russian Government, he may have been the one making the rules but those rules were still corrupt.
There's also the small fact of Volgin being an absolute psychopath, and that questioning his orders would be a good way to end up dead.
A rare positive example, courtesy of Modern Warfare 3, when the head of the SAS Captain MacMillan goes outside of the law to help Captain Price and Soap, because no one will can tell him that he can't, because he's head of the SAS.
Webcomics
In The Order of the Stick, Miko Miyazaki comes to believe that this would happen if they were to bring Lord Shojo to court. So she executes him instead. The gods disagree with her assessment, and strip her of her powers.
In Flaky Pastry, Nitrine finally decides to shut up an Evil Chancellor with one line: Screw The Rules, I'm Royalty!
Western Animation
In Danny Phantom, this is Walker's attitude with his "rules". In his Establishing Character Moment, he arrests Danny, THEN makes what Danny was doing at the time illegal.
Peter Griffin's song in "E. Peterbus Unum" (the episode where he builds a micronation out of his estate) could be "Screw The Rules I Make Them", the anthem:
Peter: AH, AH, AH, can't touch me!
Juh-juh-juh-juh-just like the bad guys from 'Lethal Weapon 2''
It's Peter go Peter I'm Peter yo Peter let's see Regis rap this way
Cant touch me!
Crowd: Yeah!
Peter: Except for you, you can touch me.
Stavros Garkos and his brother Spiro Garkos in Hurricanes.
Cad Bane in Star Wars: The Clone Wars: "I'm in control. I make the rules now." Of course, he is speaking as a hostage taker, not as an authority figure.
More conventionally, Moralo Eval sets up an elaborate challenge for a bunch of bounty hunters recruited by Dooku. Obi-Wan, disguised as bounty hunter Rako Hardeen, keeps screwing up his death traps by teaching the participants to get around them with a higher survival rate than he wants. Fed up, he sets up a sniper challenge (Hardeen's specialty). Obi-Wan's force-guided reflexes are ably to easily pass it... were it not for the fact that Eval only gave his rifle enough charge to shoot four of the five required targets (a fact he doesn't mention until Hardeen fails). Cad Bane saves Hardeen, since he considers such flagrant cheating unsporting.
At the end of Aladdin, our hero is revealed to be a poor "street rat" and hence by the law of the land, not eligible to marry Princess Jasmine. Seeing how miserable she is, the Sultan shows the first sign of backbone we've seen in the entire story, and decrees that henceforth a Princess can marry "whoever she seems worthy."
Real World Example: During the U.S. finale of "Total Drama: Revenge of the Island", the voting polls were open to decide the winner of the season (Zoey, Lightning, or Cameron). When the finale aired in the U.S., the network ignored the votes, and decided to go with Lightning as the winner, even though Cameron was in the lead in the polls.
Batman almost always averts this in terms of the rules he sets for himself, but when he captured the Sewer King (who had been using children as slave labor), he said, "This time, I'm sorely tempted [to break my own rules]!"
Real Life
In real life, this trope is the reason why Constitutions exist. Basically, a Constitution is a set of rules that cannot be changed without an incredibly long and difficult process, even by the people in charge of making the rules.
Yet, Charles Evans Hughes supposedly said, as Chief Justice of US Supreme Court, "we live under a Constitution, but Constitution is what judges say it is."
Martin Luther King Jr. was quoted with saying, "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." Never was this Trope more true than it was in that case.
Though from a certain perspective, technically it's not true. The 'constitutional' basis for Nazi laws was the 1933 Enabling Act, which gave Hitler, as Chancellor, the power to make laws and change the constitution without consulting the Reichstag. However, technically he still had to actually make the laws. There was no law that permitted the Night of the Long Knives, for instance. Though this is largely nit-picking.
The Trial of Louis XVI of France in 1792 produced some interesting arguments. Pretty much everyone agreed that Louis was guilty, but why he was seemed to be more important than whether he was:
Jean-Paul Marat, despite generally being considered an enthusiastic advocate of execution in the rest of the revolution, took a surprisingly limited stance - Louis was only guilty if he had violated the constitution of 1791 (which of course Marat believed he had).
Louis-Antoine Saint-Just and Thomas Paine, among others, argued that while the trial was necessary, it was making the wrong charges; simply having been King was in itself a crime and enough to make Louis guilty, despite the fact that Louis' kingship had been legal by the laws in place at the time.
Maximilien Robespierre largely accepted the aforementioned argument by Paine and Saint-Just, but took it even further; he argued that the trial was not even necessary because the very act of dethroning Louis and declaring France a Republic, already made him guilty: putting him on trial meant accepting there was some possibility, however small, that Louis might be innocent, which meant putting the legitimacy of the Republic in doubt, and they could only hold a trial if the Republic was legitimate.
Richard Nixon effectively said this in the interviews with David Frost (see the page quote). Note that he didn't get away with it when he tried, and people were rather shocked when he said it (or more accurately, that he said it so bluntly; people weren't terribly surprised to learn that "Tricky Dick" was a paranoid autocrat, but that he would say so out loud...).
During one sack of the city of Rome, a Gaul general named Brennus offered to ransom the city in return for a payment of gold by weight. When some of the Roman tribunes noticed that the Gaul-provided weights for determining the ransom were fixed and dared to tell him this, he responded by unsheathing his sword, throwing it upon the scale as well, and telling them (presumably through a translator) "Vae victis" or "Woe to the vanquished."
Vae victis was a common Roman battle-cry; whether the battle cry is taken from this incident or Brennus was making an Ironic Echo of the legions that had repeatedly attacked his people, it makes for a powerful story.
While almost all fast food advertising signage shows the pickles hanging out of the sides of burgers, anyone who was paying any attention when they were trained for working in the grill knows the pickle goes hidden in the center so it can be reached by a bite from any direction around the burger. Savvy workers notice this rules discrepancy eventually, but it's with good reason - so customers know there's a pickle in the burger before they buy it.
Moderators and Admins on message boards sometimes - though not necessarily always - engage in this behavior, similar to the above example of people running video game servers.
