Can law be protected by breaking it?

"A license to kill is also a license not to kill"- Quote by M (Ralph Fiennes) in Spectre.

Law-enforcement is not an easy job. Very often, enforcement personnel have to collect evidence against suspects. Since obtaining a search warrant is a time-consuming process often involving judicial red-tape, the police use surreptitious methods to do the task done. And in doing so, they commit the crime of breaking-and-entering.

A more serious matter is that of encounter killings. These are killings by the Police that are not sanctioned by the judiciary. This was very useful in eliminating underworld gangsters in Mumbai and the dacoits in Chambal. But as expected, the encounter cops became too powerful for their own good. To have a better record than rivals in the department, some encounter cops started staging fake-encounters i.e. killing innocent people after framing them for crimes they had not committed. Worse, some cops were even found to indulge in supari killings (contract killings). The near elimination of organized crime had left a vacancy in people willing to kill for money. And who better than morally-compromised trigger happy encounter cops to fill the place?

In the global space, the world powers are known to commit heinous acts in the name of counter-terrorism. The War on Terror has caused the countless loss of life in the Middle East and Africa. A similar situation happened in Mexico and Columbia in the War on Drugs. The intelligence personnel were known to favour certain incumbents in the criminal trade. These wars certainly eliminated some terrorists and drug-cartels respectively. But did it curb the root problem or only made it worse? It dehumanized by desensitizing the local population to violence and only created resentment against the global peacekeeping process.

Gangsters and terrorists cannot be allowed to go scot-free. But what is the appropriate action against them? It is ethical for nations to indulge in preventive killings within their borders and in international territories? Who should have a licence to kill, and when? And should that person be of the stature of James Bond, or even the local constabulary should have that privilege?