Should we always obey the law?

I read the following article:

Bigger Than The Law: Becoming More Ethical Than the Society You Grew Up In

Obviously what is lawful or illegal doesn't necessarily correlate with what is moral. However, that doesn't imply we ought to disobey the law where a law is unjust -- it's complicated.

Many years ago I read about someone working in a bank in Germany who was continually illegally transferring money from rich peoples' accounts to poor peoples' accounts, but taking none of this money for himself.

Obviously this is illegal and needs to be punished, otherwise not punishing such behaviour would be carte blanche for people to disobey the law whenever they felt that some activity was moral even if illegal. The law has to be applied together with punishments, otherwise the whole fabric of the law is threatened. So, even if some action is moral, perhaps we ought not to do the moral thing if it involves disobeying the law.

On the other hand it seems clear to me that this bank worker did a very moral thing and that person is very much to be applauded. Indeed, it was sufficiently moral so as to overcome the deleterious effects on the legal system.

So that person did a very moral thing and the right thing, but nevertheless ought to be punished. There is no contradiction here. The best outcome would be if that person had never been discovered. I believe it was one of these poor people who complained about having too much money! sighs...

Problem here of course is the disgraceful inequality that capitalism generates.