In most constitutional free countries there's usually a very strong principle that government officials and law enforcement must always strictly follow the law. In other words, some rogue government worker or institution cannot just make up their own rules and laws at a whim that affect normal citizens and start enforcing them. For every rule that's being imposed onto citizens there must be a statute that can be cited. If there is, for example, a sign that mandates something from every citizen that enters the premises, it should at least theoretically be possible for that sign to contain the exact statute (by code, section number, etc) that supports said mandate.
This can often be seen in many governmental spaces that are heavily restricted, such as for example military bases or the restricted areas of airports: There will usually be signs that eg. categorically forbid entry without permission, with the relevant statutes being cited.
This makes sense: In a representative democracy the people have elected representatives who come up with and decide on laws by majority vote. If the majority of the representatives vote to pass a particular law, it represents the will of the people.
Some governmental institution making up and enforcing their own custom rules that have no direct basis on actual law goes completely contrary to this principle. This would bestow that governmental entity powers above those of elected representatives. These rules and their enforcement become arbitrary, and bypass the parliamentary process.
Yet, it happens all the time, in many countries, especially in the United States. While this is most probably not exclusive to that country, it happens most prominently there (or at least it's most often prominently exposed there.)
In other words, governmental institutions, such as for example court houses, governmental offices, etc. often make up their own rules that they impose onto the citizens, where these rules are not based on any laws.
One of the most common such rules is forbidding photography inside the premises of the building (including in the publicly accessible areas). In the United States there is no law, no statute, no code, no act, that would forbid this, or that would explicitly allow governmental entities to forbid it. Whenever you see a sign inside such a building forbidding photography, you'll notice that it never, ever cites any code, any statute, any law.
Also, quite prominently, whenever someone is arrested and charged with breaking such a rule, he is never, ever, charged with "photographing inside a governmental building, where it's prohibited". The charge is always something completely unrelated, most commonly "trespassing".
This very fact is very telling: If the mandate were based on law, then the infringer would be charged of breaking said law. But that never happens. And that's, rather obviously, because there is no such law. Such a law doesn't exist. The mandate isn't based on any law. It's completely made up by whoever is in charge of that particular governmental building. It's a custom personal rule, enforced by threat of "trespassing".
And the sad and scary thing? It's completely legal for them to do that! Well, at least in the sense that not only are they allowed to do that, courts will usually rule in their favor. Or, at least, will usually not mandate such rules and signs to be removed (with very few exceptions). On the contrary, there exist several court rulings that support the right of governmental buildings to, for example, restrict photography and to use the trespassing law to enforce it. (Sometimes when someone is trespassed for this reason, a judge might dismiss the charges, depending on the situation, but rarely if ever will demand the rules and signs to be removed from the building. They just allow it to continue, if not outright reaffirm their validity.)
So this is a situation where the people in charge of a governmental building and, quite often, judges are imposing their own custom made-up "laws" that did not go through the parliamentary process to be approved, and instead were made up by (usually) unelected people who otherwise do not have the power to pass any laws. In other words, these people have the power of parliament, without having been elected, at least when it comes to the particular premises that they are in charge of. They have the power of creating their own rules and have law enforcement enforce those rules, and have (usually) judges reaffirm those rules and convict people for breaking them.
(And once again note that I'm here talking about the publicly accessible areas of public buildings, owned by the government, ie. public property. I'm not talking about privately owned private property. Those are governed by completely separate laws.)
While this is most prominent in the United States, it's probably also true in many other countries (including those that have a constitution that very explicitly states that the government must always strictly follow the law.)
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