alt Hacker News> This is European law, not US. Reasonable means reasonable and judges here are expected to weigh each side's interests and come to a conclusion. Not just a literal interpretation of the law.
I think you've got civil and common law the wrong way round :). US judges have _much_ more power to interpret law!
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It is European law, as in EU law, not law from a European state. In EU matters, the teleogocial interpretation, i.e. intent applies:
> When interpreting EU law, the CJEU pays particular attention to the aim and purpose of EU law (teleological interpretation), rather than focusing exclusively on the wording of the provisions (linguistic interpretation).
> This is explained by numerous factors, in particular the open-ended and policy-oriented rules of the EU Treaties, as well as by EU legal multilingualism.
> Under the latter principle, all EU law is equally authentic in all language versions. Hence, the Court cannot rely on the wording of a single version, as a national court can, in order to give an interpretation of the legal provision under consideration. Therefore, in order to decode the meaning of a legal rule, the Court analyses it especially in the light of its purpose (teleological interpretation) as well as its context (systemic interpretation).
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/5993...
In the US, for most laws, and most judges, there's actually much less power to interpret law. Part of the benefit of the common law system is to provide consistency and take that interpretation power away from judges of each case.