Tertium non datur? American Originalism and Polarization in Democracy

Abstract

Originalism – as one of the main approaches to the interpretation of the U.S. federal Constitution – has been increasingly viewed as an instrument of political struggle in the hands of the judiciary. This article offers a discussion of the effects of origi-nalist interpretation, which enable legal orders with different axiology to exist in a federal state. The above situation raises the question of the legitimacy of accepting legal relativism and consent to the creation of parallel juridical realities when the degree of polarisation makes it impossible to seek compromise. The purpose of the article is to highlight that, paradoxically, originalism can strengthen the stabilising and organising role of law in line with the concept of E pluribus unum.