Sustained critical reporting of disgraced former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid's criminal past means he won't face a jury trial on a separate corruption allegation.
The 76-year-old former ALP powerbroker - due to be released from a Sydney prison on Saturday - is set to be tried in February alongside son Moses Obeid and former mining minister Ian Macdonald.
The trio is accused of conspiring over the issuing of a coal mining exploration licence on Obeid family land at Mount Penny in the Bylong Valley, near Mudgee, between 2007 and 2009.
The five-month trial - already delayed due to "adverse media commentary" - will now solely be presided over by NSW Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Fullerton.
The judge's reasons - published on Friday - note "the long-standing and sustained critical opprobrium" of the two former ministers in print and online media including the repeated recitation of Obeid's criminal history and their damaged political careers.
Justice Fullerton said despite the trial being delayed, news outlets had continued to refer to Obeid by "a range of highly prejudicial epithets".
Those descriptions either directly or indirectly aligned him with institutional corruption, she said.
The judge specifically referenced widespread coverage of the parole authority's decision in November to grant Obeid conditional release.
Obeid was jailed in December 2016 for at least three years after being found guilty of misconduct in public office between August and November 2007.
He lobbied a public servant to secure lease renewals for two lucrative Circular Quay businesses without revealing his family's financial interests in the outlets.
His maximum term was five years.
"The accused have ... a well-founded concern that the media's apparently insatiable appetite for reporting upon his confinement as a prisoner will focus not merely upon his release from custody and upon the offence which attracted the sentence of imprisonment ... but also his pending trial," Justice Fullerton said.
The judge took into account the potential impact of an independent review of NSW Labor, which is due to start after anti-corruption body ICAC's donations inquiry closes.
The complexity of the trial for a lay jury and finding jurors not already infected by media coverage were also concerns acknowledged by the judge.
Obeid is expected to walk from Silverwater Correctional Complex on Saturday morning.
He will be subject to 11 standard parole conditions including that he can't be in control of money or assets of other people or organisations.
Australian Associated Press
