> especially given said rule is incredibly vague and designed to be applied "on principle".
You know, I'm starting to feel that at least some of this contention is based on how Americans interpret the law vs. how Europeans do it. Somehow it seems that Americans (and the UK) has this huge legal corpus but everything has to be nitpicked to the letter, or the common law judges' interpretations may vary wildly, and some people might skate on technicalities, i.e. abuse of the letter of the law.
Whereas in civil law, which the EU is, there's less leeway for interpretation, however, the spirit of the law is also taken into account.
It's the opposite. "In-principle" creates lots of potential for interpretation, depending on who is doing the reading. The spirit of the law is also taken into account all the time in America.
It's really not as simple as you make it out to be and the EU has plenty of argumentative litigation.
You know, I'm starting to feel that at least some of this contention is based on how Americans interpret the law vs. how Europeans do it. Somehow it seems that Americans (and the UK) has this huge legal corpus but everything has to be nitpicked to the letter, or the common law judges' interpretations may vary wildly, and some people might skate on technicalities, i.e. abuse of the letter of the law.
Whereas in civil law, which the EU is, there's less leeway for interpretation, however, the spirit of the law is also taken into account.