Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
That sounds suspiciously like the rule of law to me.
There are those who just can't stand that.
Many years ago, while wearing my architect hat, I had a client who bought a small mansion in a mostly rural town with the intention of using it as his company's headquarters. The business dealt in specialized, custom software serving a particular market niche. Using a house as a business didn't violate that town's zoning regulations, but the first architect the guy contacted told him it couldn't be done under the building code without spending more money than it was worth. Someone then referred him to me, and my first question of him and the original architect was, "Did you review it under the Existing Building Code? (That's a separate code book that most states also adopt.) The answer, of course, was "Huh?", so I did a deep dive through the Existing Building Code and found that, basically, all he was required to do was to paint a single handicapped parking space on the driveway, and build a ramp to make one of the doors an accessible entrance.
There was a clause in the Existing Building Code that completely cancelled out the Fire Code, The local fire marshal, a woman, didn't like the project so she called the State Building Inspector (who conveniently happened to be a personal friend) and whined about (as I heard later from someone in a position to know), "But how do I get into MY code for this project?"
She couldn't -- legally. Not to fear, though. Her pal came to the rescue. He did something unprecedented. He submitted a request for interpretation
to himself, and then used that to interpret that provision of the code to mean the exact opposite of what it plainly said. His department's legal advisor from the AG's office told him he couldn't do that, and he did it anyway.
In the end, my client did a bit more than he should have been required to do, but he was allowed to turn the house into his corporate headquarters. No thanks to Madame Fire Marshal.