The hearing, now scheduled for July 14 at the High Court in London, will consider whether the families’ application should proceed.

The news comes a fortnight after the former defence secretary, Sir Liam Fox, delivered a letter to Downing Street, along with the families, calling for a fresh review into the case.

Lawyers acting for the families say one of the principal arguments advanced by the UK government to oppose the judicial review is that the case has been brought too late. Government lawyers claim it should have been brought in 2011 – when the pilots were cleared.

But the Chinook Justice Campaign says any move to time-bar the case would be a profound injustice, given that critical information concerning airworthiness and the circumstances leading up to the crash has only emerged gradually over many years and never officially revealed by the MoD.

Human rights lawyer Mark Stephens, who represents the families, said: “At the heart of this case is a deeply troubling proposition. The facts were hidden, families were kept apart and they were not told the truth. 

“The government’s position appears to be that families who were repeatedly misled and denied access to critical information should somehow have realised much earlier that they had grounds to challenge those decisions.

“They are effectively saying these families should have spotted that they were being misled. That they should have spotted a cover up over the circumstances surrounding the crash. That cannot be right.

“The law exists to provide justice, not to reward concealment or to allow public bodies to avoid scrutiny by relying on the passage of time.”

He added: “If the state has failed to act with candour, if information has been withheld and people have been misdirected, it cannot then turn around and say: ‘You are too late.’ That would be a travesty of justice on top of a cover up.”