Under legal authority, those granted the right to rule must themselves obey the laws. It follows that if procedural rules are the source of legal authority, then these procedural rules will have some special status in the society, akin to the aura of monarchy or religion in traditional societies. The status of the Constitution in the USA is a good example of rules having almost 'sacred' status. Like Durkheim, then, Weber seems to be suggesting that in modern societies law itself becomes the ultimate source of auth¬ority: Weber's conception of legal domination has been drawn on exten¬sively in the elaboration of the doctrine of the 'rule of law' by modern legal theorists (Cotterrell 1984).