“Human law is law only by virtue of its
accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the
eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an
unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of
violence.”
~ Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia-Ilae, q. xciii, art. 3, ad
2m.