National legislators approach European law very differently. The reason for these differences lies partly in the historical development of their individual legal cultures. If one pursues a broad interpretation of the term ‘legal culture’ one takes especially into account the style of law and the attitude toward it. Thus legal culture can be defined as the Continental civil law countries’ ideal of a “concise, but comprehensive codification by which the judge can derive solutions for all possible cases through teleological interpretation;” whereas the common law rather limits this concept to “special laws which are interpreted very narrowly by the courts and accordingly are designed by the legislator to the last detail”. Furthermore, one could include the status of a judge, the nature of legal discourse, or the training of legal professionals, as well as the respect accorded to the law by the population when defining the concept of ‘legal culture'.
