With the help of my colleagues, I offer the following possible solutions: Schedule more matters for hearing each week. Prior to 2006, 10 to 15 decrees nisi were considered four days each week, and Fridays were dedicated to hearing applications for decrees absolute. Since 2006, no more than 30 decrees nisi and 15 decrees absolute applications are scheduled for hearing in any given week.
Allot time on the court's roster for hearing divorce applications as is done for other civil matters. In other words, if 15 divorce matters are assigned to a judge on any given day, at least two hours should be set aside for those matters to be considered.
If all documents filed in divorce proceedings are to be checked by a registrar before they are submitted to the judge, more registrars need to be assigned to vet the documents. Alternatively, as no other civil matter which ends with a judge's order is subject to that scrutiny, the need to have registrars vet documents could be eliminated altogether; especially as the rules do not require it to be done.
If there are errors or omissions in documents which are placed before a judge (for example, the draft order contains a typographical error), it may be better to notify the petitioner's attorney of the error and schedule a date for the matter to be further considered rather than simply issuing a requisition, which causes the matter to fall to the bottom of the long list of other divorce matters.
Before placing an application for decree nisi before a judge for consideration, 'setting down papers' could be prepared to verify that all documents are in order and adequate notice of the hearing date could be sent to the petitioner's attorney. In this way, there may be fewer rejected applications clogging the system.
This list is not exhaustive, and there may be more workable solutions than those I have proposed. What is true is that, with all the reviews that have been done over the years, the discussions can and should now end. It is time for resources to be committed to implementing some of the solutions.