National Judges, Community Judges: Invitation to a Journey through the Looking-glass-On the Need for Jurisdictions to Rethink the Inter-systemic Relations beyond the Hierarchical Principle

The historical conflict between the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the national constitutional courts regarding primacy is a misunderstanding. In going through the looking-glass, we can understand that, on the contrary, the ECJ and the national constitutional courts adopt comparable solutions in their treatment of legal pluralism, and that they see the negation of pluralism as essential for the survival of their own legal orders. Therefore, these judges must be offered a new theoretical context to help them reconcile their role as supreme guardian with the taking into account of the pluralist context. Finally, practical proposals must be made to give judges the instruments and techniques that are capable of reflecting this plural structure.