In his judgment, the Vice-President Cheshin expressed the position that he does not dispute the main points of the Apropim rule, and that it stands on a machine. However, he expresses concern that the halakha has opened a wide, too wide door for the courts' intervention in the autonomy of the parties to a contract, to the point of disproportionate and improper interference in the content of contracts designed by the parties, and from this, prima facie, the basic principle of contract law is violated.
My opinion is that the experience accumulated during the years of the application of the Apropim rule shows that this fear, which also found wide expression in the criticisms brought in scholarly books (to which the Vice-President referred in his opinion) is excessive.
My colleague Justice Procaccia rightly noted that the Apropim rule "has become, since it was given, an interpretive anchor for understanding the intentions of the parties to the contract." Indeed, the provision of an interpretive tool by the court provides it with a legal tool that must be used carefully, so as not to fall outside the boundaries of the required interpretation of the contract. The rules of interpretation provide ample space in their legitimate interpretive scope, and within their framework it is possible to delimit the proper place of the subjective purpose and the relationship between it and the objective purpose, without this dictating a contract to the parties.
In his judgment in the Apropim case, in other judgments and in his extensive academic writing on the subject in his book "The Interpretation of the Contract", President Barak discussed the manner in which the subjective intentions of the parties to the contract are determined, and the nature of the objective purpose of the contract and the relationship between them. In determining the change in the interpretive proceeding from the two-stage proceeding to the complex proceeding, which includes the filter of examination of the objective purpose inherent in the contract as well as in the circumstances external to the contract, it was stated, inter alia, by President Barak in the Apropim judgment, as follows: