Under the Coroners Act, the team of 15 experts is required to meet four times a year to make recommendations.

But after its convenor, former state coroner Mary Jerram, resigned in December, the team has not met at all this year.

Team member Betty Green, a women's advocate, has questioned the delay and said there were already 31 cases waiting to be examined.

"We are unable to do any work and it is distressing," she said. "The legislation is very clear that the team must meet four times a year. This is such an important mechanism for reviewing domestic violence deaths."

It is expected that Ms Jerram's replacement as state coroner, Michael Barnes, will also take over as head of the Domestic Violence Death Review team, but the panel is yet to be reappointed.

Last year, analysis by the team found almost every man killed by his female partner between 2000 and 20009 had previously been violent towards her, with implications for reform of provocation laws.

The team was established by Parliament in 2010, after concern that almost half of domestic violence deaths were not recorded as such in the database used by police.

Shadow attorney-general Paul Lynch said: "The work of this team is far too important to be subject to such a lackadaisical approach from the government."

A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Brad Hazzard, who replaced Greg Smith in April, said the NSW government had introduced several reforms to assist domestic violence victims and improve agency responses in the past 18 months.

"The government is continuing to work on a number of initiatives to improve responses to victims of domestic violence," she said.