Pluralism, Values, and the European Judge

The community of jurists and philosophers of law recently lost an unusual figure in the person of Neil MacCormick. The longtime Regius Professor of public law at the University of Edinburgh and member of the European Parliament belongs to the ranks of those who have made profound contributions to renewing our approach to European law and, in particular, to the relationship between the European Union and member states. Among his many contributions to the general theory of law was his view that relations between the EU legal order and national legal orders can be explained in terms of “pluralism.” The term does not refer strictly speaking to a doctrine. It is used today by many magistrates to account for the complexity of relationships between legal orders, which appear to be simultaneously connected and independent of one another 1 —relationships about which it is said that, “as with living organisms, the separation and integration of tasks is coordinated.” 2 The point is to identify a process whereby legal orders are harmonized without being fused. This position offers a third way to the well-known alternative in international law between dualism (in