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Constitutional Pluralism and the Slovak Constitutional Court:
the Challenge of European Union Law
Max Steuer – PF UK Bratislava
1. Introduction
‘What begins as heterodoxy becomes prevailing orthodoxy, in this case when
Constitutional Pluralism (...) suddenly emerges as hopelessly politically correct.’
1
Joseph H. H. Weiler
It seems counterintuitive to start a paper that has ‘constitutional pluralism’ in its
title with a quote that depicts it as a concept used for potential indoctrination and
domination of a single view, instead of an open and free debate, inherently present in
a pluralist environment. However, it makes sense for two reasons. Firstly, the quote is
a gentle but very sharp warning from one of the foremost living constitutional scholars
(and advocates of the European project of ‘unity in diversity’), which stresses the risk
of domination instead of equality and multiplicity in any concept, approach or even
policy. Secondly, it highlights how much constitutional pluralism has moved to the
center of constitutional discourse in Europe, especially in the context of the emergence
and development of multiple legal orders on the continent constituted not only by
domestic and international law but also the supranational legal order of the European
Union (EU).
The birth of the concept was not accidental. When in 1999, Neil MacCormick
first used it in his analysis of the impact of the transformation of sovereignty on the
relationship between law and the state,
2
the European Union, a polity in the making,
3
has changed much since its emergence as an association aimed at bringing peace to
Europe, and with an added value of economic cooperation to increase the well-being
of citizens. There is no room to elaborate this transformation here but to be sure, law
made up a huge portion of it, as it became the ‘driver’ of European integration,
4
per-
haps the only one through which the EU has had a chance to become ‘ever closer’
5
to
its citizens after the signature of the Treaty on European Union in
1
Weiler, Joseph H. H.: Prologue. In: Búrca, Gráinne de and J. H. H. Weiler (eds.): The Worlds of
European Constitutionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 8.
2
MacCormick, Neil: Questioning Sovereignty. Oxford: OUP, 1999, pp. 97-121.
3
See e.g. Eriksen, Eri k Oddvar: Making the European Polity: Reflexive Integration in the EU. London:
Routledge, 2005.
4
Hunt, Jo and Jo Shaw: Fairytale of Luxembourg? Reflections on law and legal scholarship in European
integration. In: Hunt, Jo et al. (eds.): Reflections on European Integration: 50 Years of the Treaty of
Rome. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 93-109.
5
This well-known phrase is included in the Preamble and Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union,
for example: “This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the
peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the