That's an interesting one; it was originally worded exactly like Matt suggests, but then we changed into the current version: https://hibernate.atlassian.net/browse/BVAL-678 .I'm sympathetic to the current behaviour of that TCK test and to adjusting the spec wording accordingly. Only you, Guillaume, didn't seem to like that alternative as per our discussion on June 26th, in the Hibernate Validator chat room. Perhaps you remember what made you dislike it back then?