A functioning legal system can exist where only officials accept its rules.

Evidence

In an extreme case the internal point of view with its characteristic normative use of legal language (‘This is a valid rule’) might be confined to the official world. In this more complex system, only officials might accept and use the system’s criteria of legal validity. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 350

Categorization

• XREF: XREF: Compares with authoritarian compliance and sheep-like populations. — connects to: Private citizens need only obey rules for their own part. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 349; Rules function as rules only if they tolerate some suboptimal outcomes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 223; Law emerges when a secondary rule separates legal rules from social rules — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 59 (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 350

Broader Connections

• Private citizens need only obey rules for their own part. #expands (0.85) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 349
• Law emerges when a secondary rule separates legal rules from social rules #expands (0.60) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 59
• Rules function as rules only if they tolerate some suboptimal outcomes #qualifies (0.35) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 223