The transfer of high-profile Dunedin cases to the High Court at Christchurch has been questioned by University of Otago dean of law Prof Mark Henaghan.
Trials of murder accused Colin Bouwer, David Bain and Clayton Weatherston have all been transferred in recent years to Christchurch.
"The question I ask myself is: If we had a resident High Court judge in Dunedin, would this have happened?" Prof Henaghan said in an interview.
The purpose of a jury trial was that people were tried by their peers, in their local communities, because that was where the alleged crimes took place.
"We're almost to the point of moving them as far as possible so no-one cares about any of it."
Moving high-profile trials gave the perception that ordinary citizens in the town where a particular crime was alleged to have happened were not trusted to be fair.
"I would question that."
Those seeking a change of venue had to show there was a real risk a fair and impartial trial might not be possible in the original venue, which was more than a perception this might be the case.
Concerns that such high-profile cases would not get a fair trial in Dunedin because of people having close contact with the defendants did not stand up to scrutiny, he said.
If there were worries about this, it could be dealt with at the time the jury was selected.
It was a matter of calling extra people to allow for that.
All New Zealanders had "about one degree of separation", he said, but how many big trials were moved out of Auckland?
If trials were conducted near where the alleged crimes occurred, citizens could go to the court and observe the process.
That was not possible when trials were elsewhere. Seeing something on television was not the same as being there and trying to understand events which had happened in your community.
He was not convinced that, with the amount of pre-trial publicity available in a variety of media in a high-profile case, there was any concrete evidence Dunedin juries were influenced or unfairly influenced by living in this part of the country.
It also had to be remembered that when trials were shifted, it involved a burden on families involved with them.
After the outcome of the Clayton Weatherston trial, Lesley Elliott, the mother of his murder victim, referred to the stress of having to attend the trial in Christchurch and of her longing to go home.
"We just wanted to be in our own home where Sophie was."
The trial, which was originally set to begin on June 22, began on June 24 and lasted four weeks, a week longer than originally planned.
Dunedin people involved with the Bain trial who wished to attend all his retrial in Christchurch earlier this year had to spend three months away from home.
Bouwer's trial in late 2001 lasted about six weeks.
Prof Henaghan noted that the high-profile trial of Michael Swann, charged with defrauding the Otago District Health Board of $16.9 million, had not been shifted from Dunedin, although arguments about pre-trial publicity and the breadth of his community connections could have been made.
No application for a change of venue was made in that case.
