Law and Police Officer

Law and Police Officer
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Introduction
A warranted employee of the police force is commonly referred to as a police officer in most commonwealth countries. The political context in a particular country makes the responsibilities and duties of a police officer to vary from one country to another or from one state to another. Some of major duties of a police officer include investigation of crime, protection of people and property, law enforcement and keeping peace. The conduct of a police officer within the community is dictated by specified rules and regulations. When off duty, police officers still retain their lawful powers. This means that they can still execute their duties of enforcing the law such as apprehending a criminal as well as other persons who breaks the law in their presence. The police force is therefore an administrative agency and officers are always expected to obey order form their seniors or the executive. This paper thus tries to exemplify the ideal that police officers should only obey executive orders that are within constitutional limits by highlighting how executive orders affect the work of a police officer.
The state of police force in maintaining law
The general weakness of the formal powers of a chief executive is normally the separation of powers. There are some presidents that use executive orders for their own selfish gains while others use it for the benefit of a nation (Mayer, 1999). Presidents can use executive orders to affect the interpretation and implementation of legislation, alter regulatory and administrative processes, reorganize executive branch agencies and even establish policy. There are many instances where the police have been illegally used by presidents. According to Mayer (1999), the president’s statutory or constitutional authority should be fully applied when giving executive orders and anything apart from that is illegal. Courts and police officers are sometimes forced to uphold illegal executive orders and this trend is never good for a nation. Presidents have a lot of influence and police officers are sometimes forced to obey illegal executive orders for fear of losing their jobs. The police have a role to play in the implementation statutes because they are normally part of executive branch agencies with a responsibility of implementing administrative regulations (Samuels, 2005).
There is always a broad discretion for presidents and governors to make laws because they are the chief executives of the federal and state agencies respectively. Presidents and governors can use executive orders to unilaterally make laws. Some of the laws may affect ...