Abstract
Comparative references to judicial reasoning of constitutional and other top courts in member states of the European Union are gaining ground. There are several purposes of this practice that are worthy of attention: to strengthen a court's argument, to simplify a court's argument or to underline a criticism of or disagreement with an argument of a foreign court in a similar case.
There is an additional meaning of such horizontal comparative references beyond these: a communicatively generated legitimacy of the Court of Justice of the EU, if the Court is open to hear this multivocal chorus and ready to reflect it in its decision-making.