Politics, ethics & the law, legal practice & scholarship

This paper examines legal practice, legal scholarship, ethics and politics from the viewpoint of an academic who in his lifetime has, besides having been a professor, been a vice-rector, a civil servant, an advocate general and an anti-corruption officer.. As a vice-rector he acknowledged the essence of decision making: based on intuition kept in check by deliberation. As a civil servant he learned to involve considerations of general interest in the decision making process. As an advocate general he tried to combine assistance to the Court with assistance to the legal community in a multicultural and pluralist European environment. As an “anti-corruption” officer he used his judicial experience to advance reform in the EC Commission. As an academic he sought to promote the “bottom up” approach of comparative law: from judicial (and legislative) solutions to general principles which the EU member states have in common.