Section — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
§ 2. On the Legislator Himself as Subject to His Own Laws
A twofold distinction must be premised: 1. The force of law is one thing as preceptive, another as coercive. The preceptive force of law causes the observance of the law; but the coercive force punishes the transgressor of the law with established penalties. 2. The legislator is either an individual person, as the Pope, a bishop, etc., or some legislative college, for example, a provincial council, the general chapter of some religious order, a parliament, etc.
191. Principle 1. The individual members of some legislative college are held to the laws made by this college, just as the other subjects are.
Thus all teach, and it is plain of itself. Thus, for example, a religious prelate is held to the laws made in the chapter of which he himself was a member; members of parliament are held to laws made by parliament; bishops are held to laws made by a provincial council, etc. But how bishops and religious prelates are able to dispense in laws of this kind is determined in ecclesiastical law.64
64 Cf. our Man. iur. can. 29. Since the Pope is above an ecumenical council and not only a member of it, he is not subject to laws made by an ecumenical council.
192. Principle 2. A legislator who has made laws as an individual person is held to his laws only as to their directive force, and that in an indirect way; but not as to their coercive force.
Thus St. Thomas,65 St. Alphonsus,66 and other theologians commonly. The Angelic Doctor says: "The prince is said to be released from the law as to the coercive force of the law; for no one is properly coerced by himself; but law does not have coercive force except from the power of the prince ... but as to the directive force of the law, the prince is subject to the law by his own will. ... Whence as to the judgment of God (that is, in the forum of conscience), the prince is not released from the law as to its directive force; but he must fulfill the law voluntarily, not coerced."67 And truly it would be unbecoming if the legislator himself did not observe the laws which he has made, and by his transgressions stirred up subjects to despise the law that had been made. - But is the legislator held to the observance of his law under grave obligation or under light obligation? St. Alphonsus answers:68 "It is probable, scandal being excluded, that he is held only under light obligation; because he is obligated to the law only from fittingness." But scandals and other inconveniences easily arise if the legislator without sufficient reason transgresses his own law. For thus the nerve of discipline is gradually broken in the subjects.
A legislator who is an individual person is not held to his laws as to coercive force, since no one is coerced by himself. Hence, for example, if a bishop (whether within or outside a diocesan synod) has imposed suspension upon clerics visiting the theater, he himself committing such a delict does not incur this censure.
It is plain of itself that the legislator can for a reasonable cause dispense with himself in the observance of the law, just as with his subjects.
65 S. theol. I-II, q. 96, a. 5 ad 3.
66 Theol. mor. l. 1, n. 154.
67 Cf. Cajetan on this article, who rightly thinks this obligation arises from eternal and natural law, from which every human law must be derived.
68 Theol. mor. l. 1, n. 154.