http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/EUECJ/2010/C16209_O.html

opinion of the advocate general, recommending the court find in favour of Lassal:

VIII Conclusion

# On the basis of the foregoing considerations, I propose to the Court that it answer the question referred as follows:

Article 16 of Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 and repealing Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC is to be interpreted as meaning that a Union citizen who resided legally for a continuous period of five years in a host Member State, before expiry of the period for transposition of the directive on 30 April 2006, has a right of permanent residence, in so far as she was not absent from that Member State for a period exceeding two consecutive years.

I love EU law, it's so reasonable. The fact they look at why the directives were introduced and what they were intended to achieve is such a pleasant change.

actually, UK judges do too - but only if the actual statute is ambiguous and thus can look at such stuff as an aid to construction...

EU judges seem to go a few steps further like with the cases of Baumbast, Ibrahim and Teixera. While UK judges would have probably accepted (through gritted teeth) that a child can have the R2R through article 12, the EU judges went that one step further to say that the R2R for the child is meaningless if the child does not have the carer there to support them, therefore logic dictates the carer must have the R2R too.

EU law is and always has been purposive. This is why all the pieces of legislation have such long preambles which set out what the intention was of creating the legislation. The preamble in an EU piece of legislation is a primary aid to interpretation, so you must look back to the preamble if there is any dispute about the applicability of the law to a particular set of facts.
In English law, statues too have preambles, but they can only rarely be used as an aid to interpretation (for example under the so called "mischief rule"- what was the mischief ths law was intended to prevent/avoid?). They are very much background, not primary expressions of purpose. If the wording of the law is clear and unabmbiguous, there is no scope for looking beyond the main text.

And bear in mind that the current run of cases on R2R is arising because the judges of the English courts have chosen to refer points of difficulty to the ECJ rather than force the claimants to make the running.

just looks like lots of words randomnly thrown at the page to me....