Who Needs the Sub Judice Rule? Israel as a Test Case in the Relationship between Law and Media Yuval Karniel * Criminal trials of public igures, such as those with a human interest angle, have for some time been conducted outside the realm of judges, courts and lawyers. A trial is irst held in the public sphere, through media, television, written press, radio and internet. 1 Only months or years later does the matter reach a courtroom as an oficial proceeding ending with a sentence or acquittal. The public trial, or trial by the public, which is irst and foremost held in the public arena by the media, takes place before any determina- tion is made by a court, and at times is of no less importance. The rise of the power of media institutions and the decline in the public’s conidence in the judiciary is the factor responsible for the altered balance of power that exists between the law and the media, 2 which, needless to say, mandates a normative change as well. 3 Trials held in Israel against the former president of Israel, Moshe Katzav, former prime minister Ehud Olmert and others, as well as many trials around the world, such as that of the chairman of the World International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss- Kahn, held in the US, and the trial of the killers of Stephen Lawrence in England, are important in demonstrating how media and the judiciary in Israel and other countries are able to ignore the sub judice rules applicable in their jurisdictions. These cases offer an opportunity to study whether the sub judice rule is at all effective, or in other words, whether it is at all relevant in the modern day and age. * Senior Lecturer, Sammy Ofer School of Communications, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel. Dr Karniel is an intellectual property attorney who has written extensively on subjects relating to media and the law and who served on many government and quasi-governmental boards related to media and communications in Israel. The author would like to thank Tom Goldreich for his extensive research and useful comments, and Linda Reiss-Wolicki for her help in preparing this article for publication. All websites last accessed June 2014. 1 Z Segal, K Fox and T Blass, ‘Inluence of the Media on the Position of the Public in Criminal Trials: The Trial of the Former President, Moshe Katzav, as a Test Case’ (2011) 41 Kesher 4. 2 A Rattner, ‘Rule of Law Index Comprehensive Study 2000–2010’ (Haifa University, 2010); E Yaar and Y Alkalai, ‘Faith in Institutions and Pride in Israel’s Achievements in the First Decade of the Twenties’ (Samuel Neaman Institute, Haifa 2010). 3 A Barak, The Judge in a Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2006) 57. (2014) 6(1) JML 94–120 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5235/17577632.6.1.94