The legal principles
16.There are three procedural routes whereby a decree nisi of divorce may be set aside1. i)First there is what I will call “Route A” where a party may apply to set aside a decree and be granted a rehearing of the cause. Up to now such an application has invariably, and for obvious reasons, been made by the respondent. I think that this case is the first one where such an application has been made by the petitioner. ii)Then there is what I will call “Route B” where either party may apply to rescind the decree by consent where a reconciliation has taken place. iii)Finally, there is what I will call “Route C” where a respondent applies to make a decree nisi absolute, the petitioner having failed to do so. Under Route C the court is empowered, if it refuses to grant the application, to rescind the decree. 17.The Ecclesiastical Court had always possessed the power to set aside a decree and to order a rehearing of the cause. Thus, from the very dawn of the era of secular divorce the rules had provided for Route A. Rule 62 of the Rules and Regulations in Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, dated 26 December 1865, as amended in August 1885, stated:“An application for a new trial of the issues of fact tried by a jury or for the rehearing of a cause, shall hereafter be made to a Divisional Court of the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division, and shall be by notice of motion filed in the registry stating the grounds of the application, &c.”18.Route A was put on a statutory footing by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, which provided:“