Can a rule be less arbitrary if it is imposed by parliament rather than by the police?

GIOVANNI BIRINDELLI, 15.1.2021

In a truly beautiful article, Jonathan Sumption (a former judge of the UK supreme court) makes two statements.

The first is that today the UK is a police state: “What is a police state? It is a state in which individuals are answerable to the police for the most routine acts of daily life. It is a state in which the police and not the law decide what is allowed. It is a state in which people have to hide their doings from their neighbours for fear of the twitching curtain and anonymous call to the police. It is a state in which ministers denounce activities of which they disapprove and the police are their compliant instruments. … We are unfortunate to live at a time of national hysteria, when that tradition [of of rule of law] has been cast aside and every one of these classic symptoms of a police state can be seen all around us”

The second statement is that a police state is opposite to the rule of law: “If the law says that it is reasonable to go out to take exercise, it is not for a policeman to say that it isn’t. If the law does not forbid driving somewhere to take exercise, then it is not for the police to forbid it. … It is not the function [of the police] to enforce the wishes of ministers. It is not [its] function to do whatever is necessary to make government policy work. [Its] function is to apply the law. If the law is not tough enough, that is not a matter for them but for ministers and Parliament“.

While the first statement is not problematic, the second one in my opinion is.