The three women campaigning for change, Ann Finlay, Eunice Joliffe and Rosslyn Williams, were last week jointly awarded the ACT's mental health volunteer of the year 2018 award for their tireless campaigning to improve the coronial system.

Their campaign has put the issue on the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council's agenda, as part of a wider, two-year-long inquiry into using restorative processes across the territories' justice system.

Restorative justice usually involves a process focussed on healing harm, and giving victims a voice in a legal dispute, government failing or criminal matter.

But such processes have not been used in Australia's coronial system to date, which can often be hard for grieving families unfamiliar with the legal system to navigate.

Council chairman, ANU Professor Tony Foley, said the inquiry was about the use of restorative justice, and the coronial reform group suggested the coronial process could be reformed to use restorative alternatives, and the council would pass it on to the government.

Mr Foley said the council was now nearing the end of the inquiry and expected to be handing a final report to Mr Ramsay in coming weeks, though any actual decision on the council's recommendations, and whether to release the report, were a matter for the government.

Ms Finlay, who is currently overseas, is the mother of Paul Fennessy, a young man who lost his life to a prescription drug overdose in 2010, and Ms Finlay campaigned for seven years for an inquest to be held into his death.

The story of Mr Fennessy's final years, his death and the series of failings in the ACT health and legal system laid bare in the inquest were extensively detailed in The Canberra Times' podcast Losing Paul earlier this year.

The trio have been campaigning territory ministers, public servants and the judiciary for more resources for the coronial system, more timely cases and extensive reforms to the way the court operates to make it less adversarial, better involve families in inquests and better hold public officials to account for failings.

Inquests into the deaths of each of their sons have stretched from about four years to seven years for the inquest into Mr Fennessy's death, illustrating the court's struggles to complete cases given ever-increasing workloads across the ACT Magistrates Court, with limited resources available.

Despite the award, Ros and Eunice said the work was not done, and while they believed the government was now listening to their concerns and recognised the need for reform, and more resources for the court, action on the issues had been slow.

Eunice said it had been at least a year since they first proposed a set of reforms to various ministers, but it was only now being looked at by the law reform council.

The group has also repeatedly raised their concerns about the lack of a mechanism to ensure government acts on coronial recommendations, and the need for a coronial liaison officer position to be created to help families navigate the process.

Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker has also repeatedly called on government to provide funds for a dedicated coroner, a call the trio supports, as all other jurisdictions in the country have such a position, which helps to identify systemic failings in the health and justice systems.

While government did provide funds for an extra magistrate in the latest budget, and a small injection of extra funds to support the court, it has not acted on the requests for a dedicated coroner.

The other winners in the ACT mental health awards were: Katrina McLean, Tony Baker, Natalie Malcolmson and Matthew Martin, while Delia Quigley and Sian Jackson both won Michael Firestone scholarships.