The Director of Public Prosecutions, James Hamilton, has announced he may change his policy of not giving reasons for his decisions to victims and their families.
A statement from the DPP's office today said a review of the matter was well advanced and involved the study of the policies and experiences of other common law jurisdictions.
"The office has long held the view that if some method can be devised whereby the Director could, without doing injustice, provide more information to the victims of crime of the reasons for his decisions, he would be very willing to put it into operation," it said.
The DPP may opt to give families of victims reasons for decisions on condition they do not make them public.
Today's statement said the review had not come about as the result of any particular case, but had been ongoing for some time.
But it warned that a number of principles underpinned the existing policy of not giving reasons for decisions and, ultimately it may not be appropriate to change the existing situation.
"The Director would not wish to preempt the findings of the review at this stage nor would he wish to underestimate the real difficulties in making any change of policy in this area," it added.