Southern courts are among the most likely to grant permanent name suppression, according to figures released under the Official Information Act.
Five of the 10 courts where the highest percentage of defendants were granted permanent name suppression during the past year are in Otago and Southland.
Oamaru District Court is the second-highest in the country, behind Blenheim.
In Oamaru, 2.81% of all cases result in permanent name suppression.
Queenstown, Invercargill, Dunedin and Alexandra District Courts are also in the top 10.
Those in the legal profession in the region said they could not comment further on the reasons for the high number of suppressions without assessing each case.
"Of the 1900 offences dealt with in the Dunedin court in 2016, the Crown dealt with approximately 180," Crown solicitor Robin Bates, of Dunedin, said.
"I am aware of about four in the district court in the last two years where name suppression has been granted other than for the statutory reasons and a further two in the High Court where the defendants had serious psychological problems and killed a family member.
"The rest have been dealt with by the police, so I cannot comment."
University of Otago dean of law Prof Mark Henaghan said without knowing the reasons for applications and final granting of suppression it was difficult to assess what the numbers meant about the use of suppression in the area.
"The figures themselves raise some issues but until we can see the type of cases I’m at a loss as to what I can say.
"One way of interpreting it is it’s [use of suppression] more liberal. The other explanation is there may be more cases where suppression is appropriate.
"I don’t know."
He pointed out any final suppression order could be appealed by the Crown.
A spokesman for Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue said fewer than 1% of matters dealt with by the district court were successfully appealed.
"When a lawyer applies for name suppression they must provide a good reason to the court and, in turn, judges must make their decision to grant name suppression based on the law and the circumstances of each case," the spokesman said.
"The process to challenge a judge’s decision is to appeal to a higher jurisdiction. However, only about 0.3% of all criminal matters dealt with by the District Court are successfully appealed.
"It is not surprising to see higher proportions of name suppression orders being granted by courts in provincial areas and smaller cities where there is greater community interest in court business and, as a consequence, a greater likelihood of applications for name suppression being received by those courts."
The Ministry of Justice refused to identify the judges who gave the greatest proportion of suppressions, saying such information was considered court record and courts were excluded from the Official Information Act.
Similarly, assessing how many unsuccessful applications were made was also difficult, as that was a matter of court record.
Ministry of Justice regional courts and tribunals service delivery group manager Jacquelyn Shannon said the number of permanent name suppression orders varied each year "depending on the number and type of cases before the courts".
"While the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 sets the legal framework in which decisions about name suppression are made, each suppression order is a judicial decision based on the law and the circumstances of each individual, and of each case."
Several courts which handled several thousand cases during the period, such as Waikato, Manukau and Whangarei District Courts, granted very few permanent name suppressions. Moderately busy courts in Kaikohe and Pukekohe granted none last year.
A spokesman for Justice Minister Amy Adams said she could not comment on the actions of judges.
"Decisions on whether to grant name suppression is up to judges and it wouldn’t be appropriate for the minister to comment on those decisions," he said.
