Disabling the physical light switch should usually only come after setting up a different way of controlling the light by hand, without a phone.

Most likely there is some sort of motion or presence sensor that turns on the lights which then turn themselves off after some time or no more presence is detected. There are also small wireless switches that could be used in place of the actual wall switch.

I have done so in my apartment for example. Since the bedroom light switch is for some reason outside of the room I taped it down and put a wireless switch in a more reasonable spot. Another example is the hallway light, which only turns on by motion sensing when the sun is starting to go down.