Mutual Bonds: Media Frames and the Israeli High Court of Justice

Abstract

This study examines the coverage of the Supreme Court of Israel functioning as the High Court of Justice (HCJ) in the popular and elite press over a period marked by growing activism of the Israeli Supreme Court and an increasingly adversarial and critical media. Our results show that more prominent coverage of the HCJ over time, especially in the elite press, accentuates the salience of the Supreme Court in public life. In addition, the topics, the stages of the HCJ proceedings, the petitioners, and the outcome of the cases covered by the press, as well as the generally uncritical reporting of the Court decisions help create the frame of an autonomous, powerful Court that frequently opposes and restrains the government. We suggest that this pattern of media coverage of the HCJ benefits both the Court and the media: it reinforces the image of the media as a critical watchdog of the government, while at the same time it legitimates the Court's expansion of power and strengthens its image as an apolitical and independent institution.

Clashing Over Conversion: “Who is a Jew” and Media Representations of an Israeli Supreme Court Decision

“…Moreover, throughout the month, in addition to news and editorial items about the conversion decision itself, there were spin-offs into other religion-state controversies which sometimes referred to the decision in passing, as well as to other stories of converts and conversions that did not mention the decision at all. The fact that 17 articles in Yediot and 23 articles in Haaretz dealt with religion-state matters during the 1 month period (Table 1) stands in stark contrast to the relatively few stories that featured HCJ decisions about religion-state issues found at other times (5). The large number of opinion pieces (almost twice as many opinions as news stories in Yediot, and the same number of opinions as news stories in Haaretz) is another sign of the controversial nature of the topic, and its salience in the Israeli context.…”

“…We know that the ordinary activity of the Supreme Court is usually hidden from the public eye, and that our knowledge of Supreme Court activities is by and large governed by the press coverage of mainly controversial cases [5,26,51]. This study of the coverage of a particularly contentious religion-state HCJ decision used various approaches from the linguistic and media analysis of texts to analyze the messages conveyed by the press about the role and legitimacy of the Supreme Court, and about the identity of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.…”

“…This is the principle of binding precedent (stare decisis) in Israel. 5 The High Court of Justice grants relief through orders such as injunction, mandamus, and habeas corpus as well as through declaratory judgments. 6 An early example is the area of family law.…”

“…The HCJ has broad discretionary authority to rule on matters on which it considers necessary to grant relief in the interests of justice, and which are not within the jurisdiction of other courts or tribunals. 5 Because state-religion controversies involve challenges to the incorporation and interpretation of religious norms by state authorities and public institutions, adjudication in this field has been handled primarily by the Supreme Court in its capacity as the HCJ.…”

“…While the press coverage of law and order is considerable, sometimes comprising more than half the content of the newspaper [16], media studies of legal issues in the past have focused mainly on crime and criminal law [3,6,57]. Today the range has expanded, including studies of the media portrayal of human rights [37], civil litigation [27,39], members of the legal professions [21], and lately, a growing interest in the media coverage of Supreme Courts [2,5,7,8,26,51,55].…”