Top-secret reports into allegations the security forces operated a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland more than two decades ago are to be opened to the chief coroner John Leckey.
Mr Leckey told a preliminary hearing into the deaths of six republicans and a teenager in Co Armagh in 1982 that he had been informed that PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde had agreed to his request to see the confidential Stalker and Sampson reports.
A refusal by a previous chief constable in 1994 of permission to see the reports into allegations of collusion and the alleged shoot-to-kill policy led to inquests being abandoned.
IRA men Eugene Toman, Gervaise McKerr and John Burns were shot dead near Lurgan, Co Armagh, by the RUC in November 1982. Later that month teenager Michael Tighe was shot dead at a hay shed near Craigavon and the following month suspected Irish National Liberation Army men Roddy Carroll and Seamus Grew were shot dead near Armagh.
Conditions on Mr Leckey seeing the reports were, however, imposed.
A letter from the Crown Prosecution Service said that Mr Leckey would not be able to disclose the documents to anyone else, including lawyers representing the families of the dead men, without the agreement of the chief constable.
Families of the men issued a cautious welcome of what they considered to be a major step forward, but expressed concern Sir Hugh may apply for Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificates to prevent the disclosure of certain key documents.
A lawyer representing the chief constable said he was still undertaking an examination of documents to establish what was considered sensitive and what was not.
The coroner said: "I am going to travel to a secure location rather than the reports come to my office. I intend to start after Christmas, in January - how long it will take I don't know."
He said that once he had read the documents it would enable him to establish what scope the inquests should follow, but he accepted that the inquests could become non-viable if the chief constable tried to hold back too much information.
Former Manchester deputy chief constable John Stalker first probed shoot-to-kill allegations and, after he was removed from the investigation, they were completed by Sir Colin Sampson.
Tommy Carroll, brother of one of the dead men, said: "We would consider this announcement today to be a very positive development after all these years - it didn't have to take this long."
Speaking outside the inquest, he said: "I would hope the chief constable and Secretary of State don't go down the road of issuing PII certificates."
Mark Thompson, of Relatives for Justice, said the excuses of the past no longer existed.
"We are in a new dispensation, a new era. Twenty-five years have passed and the shootings need to be examined in an open and unhindered way."