Television New Zealand reported last night that the High Court has ruled that families of the 29 men who died in the blast in 2010 may now see the privileged material that led to those charges against the mine's former CEO, Peter Whittall, being dropped.
The 12 charges related to alleged health and safety breaches in the lead-up to the explosion on November 19.
Whittall, along with other directors and officers of Pike River Coal, then made a voluntary compensation payment of $3.4 million to the families.
Bernie Monk, whose son Michael died in the mine, told RNZ's First Up programme this morning that lawyers underestimated the willingness of the families to challenge them.
Monk accused them of hiding behind legal privilege to not answer questions.
He said the lawyers' actions had affected any moves to recover the victims' bodies, causing huge pain for the families.
"It's unforgivable what they've done to the families and the hurt and the continuation of hiding behind these things has been a dagger in the heart to a lot of the families."
Asked how the families would get to see the legal documents, Monk said they would be invited to Wellington to hear an account of what was contained in them.
It was important the families continued to fight to prevent a repetition should another major tragedy of its type occur, he said.
"This has been a landmark thing for the justice system here for the people of New Zealand."
Decision a rarity - former ombudsman
A former ombudsman says the High Court ruling case may set a precedent.
Leo Donnelly, who advised on the legal action to discover how the decision to drop charges against Whittall was made, said the starting point for the case in 2017 was when the Supreme Court found that the decision was unlawful.
"Being able to access information to actually track back as to what was actually said by the parties, what was put forward, that ended up in that unlawful action taking place.
"The only way of getting that is to have transparency."
Donnelly said the applicants in the case have been granted access to High Court documents, audio, and transcripts.
He said the ruling in favour of transparency was a rarity and will enable challenges in similar cases.
