<Table> <Tr> <Td> 2005 map of Worldwide Governance Indicators, which attempts to measure the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society . 90--100th percentile * 75--90th percentile 50--75th percentile 25--50th percentile 10--25th percentile 0--10th percentile * Percentile rank indicates the percentage of countries worldwide that rate below the selected country . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> 2005 map of Worldwide Governance Indicators, which attempts to measure the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society . 90--100th percentile * 75--90th percentile 50--75th percentile 25--50th percentile 10--25th percentile 0--10th percentile * Percentile rank indicates the percentage of countries worldwide that rate below the selected country . </Td> </Tr> <P> All government officers of the United States, including the President, the Justices of the Supreme Court, state judges and legislators, and all members of Congress, pledge first and foremost to uphold the Constitution . These oaths affirm that the rule of law is superior to the rule of any human leader . At the same time, the federal government has considerable discretion: the legislative branch is free to decide what statutes it will write, as long as it stays within its enumerated powers and respects the constitutionally protected rights of individuals . Likewise, the judicial branch has a degree of judicial discretion, and the executive branch also has various discretionary powers including prosecutorial discretion . </P> <P> Scholars continue to debate whether the U.S. Constitution adopted a particular interpretation of the "rule of law," and if so, which one . For example, John Harrison asserts that the word "law" in the Constitution is simply defined as that which is legally binding, rather than being "defined by formal or substantive criteria," and therefore judges do not have discretion to decide that laws fail to satisfy such unwritten and vague criteria . Law Professor Frederick Mark Gedicks disagrees, writing that Cicero, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and the framers of the U.S. Constitution believed that an unjust law was not really a law at all . </P>

Where did the concept of law and government originate