Language – Apogee

The word “apogee” is a noun, defined in the Macquarie Dictionary (online) – relevantly, other than in an astronomical sense – as “the highest or most distant point;  climax”. The Cambridge Dictionary (online) defines the word as “the most successful, popular or powerful point: At their apogee, the novels of Spillane claimed worldwide sales of over $180 million”.  Synonyms of the word include “apex”, “peak”, “summit” and “zenith”.  Antonyms thereof include “nadir”, “base”, “bottom” and “ground”. 

Use of the word in jurisprudence include the following:

• Franke v CIC General Insurance Ltd (1994) 33 NSWLR 373: 

It was common ground that no authority, binding on this Court, determines the point in issue. The Act of the Australian Federal Parliament was itself a reflection of an imperial statute (6 Edward VII c41) enacted at Westminster as the British Empire, with its vast merchant marine, was reaching its apogee. S22 is the counterpart to s16 of the Imperial Act. That Act was designed to state, in brief and accessible terms, the then current understanding of the judge-made law. Thus, the specific mention of “coal” and “stores” reflected the earlier judicial opinion that these would not otherwise be included in the notion of the insurable value of the ship itself. See Roddick v Indemnity Mutual Marine Insurance Company Ltd [1895] 2 QB 380 (CA), 386.

• R v Frugtneit & Anor [1999] 2 VR 297 at [9]:

The last two decades have seen what we should like to think is the apogee of the long criminal trial, with its attendant quasi-criminal proceedings, and the apotheosis of its boon companion, the bloated voir dire. The importance which the voir dire has assumed was marked by the publication in 1997 of a textbook devoted to it containing 5522 footnotes: Stephens, Voir Dire Law. If, on the basis that the courts seem unable to keep the length of criminal trials within reasonable bounds, the legislature was ever minded itself to intervene, the incubus constituted by the interminable voir dire might prove to be a useful starting point.

• ICM Agriculture Pty Ltd v Commonwealth (2009) 240 CLR 140 at [183]:

The age when the Constitution was drafted was the apogee of liberalism, and the protection of property rights was central to the liberal creed. Locke had taught: “the preservation of Property being the end of Government, and that for which Men enter into Society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the People should have Property”. Bentham had said:

Property and law are born together, and die together. Before laws were made there was no property; take away laws, and property ceases.

As regards property, security consists in receiving no check, no shock, no derangement to the expectation founded on the laws, of enjoying such and such a portion of good. The legislator owes the greatest respect to this expectation which he has himself produced. When he does not contradict it, he does what is essential to the happiness of society; when he disturbs it, he always produces a proportionate sum of evil.

Maine had contended that the history of individual property rights and the history of civilisation “cannot be disentangled.” Lord Acton thought that “a people averse to the institution of private property is without the first element of freedom.” So deeply was the age of federation steeped in respect for property rights that Sir George Turner, Premier of Victoria, told the Third Session of the Convention at Melbourne on 25 January 1898, with all the innocent naiveté of someone who could not foresee how far 20th century governments all over the world were to go in seeking to make property rights precarious, that the proposed provision for just terms was unnecessary: “We assume that the Federal Parliament will act strictly on the lines of justice.”

• Plaintiff M68/2015 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) 257 CLR 42 at [127]:

The conception of an officer of the Commonwealth was held at an early stage not to be confined to a person holding executive office under Ch II of the Constitution: so as to encompass judicial and non-judicial officers of courts established by the Parliament under Ch III of the Constitution as well as holders of independent statutory offices established in the exercise of legislative power under Ch I of the Constitution. Section 75(v) is nevertheless at its apogee in its application to Ministers and other officers of the Executive Government.