another county has fallen victim to the state's extreme judicial vacancy starting today Passaic County is the latest to temporarily pause all civil and matrimonial trials Senate President Nick scooteri promised to hold a summer legislative session to move more judicial nominees to the bench but there's still no schedule sent a senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports the shortage is having a significant impact on lives I'm seeing children being forced to live in dysfunctional relationships people being forced to live together long after the marriage has ended real people are getting harmed by the failure of the Senate and the failure of the governor's office to get qualified people um nominated and appointed to the Judiciary the shortage of judges in New Jersey has already caused the courts to close civil and matrimonial trials in six counties in the state three of those counties were able to recently resume trials but as of today chief justice Stuart rabner has paused similar trials in Passaic County as well as of September 1st we will be short 8 out of 28 judges and we've had an unfortunate situation in one of our family court judges has suffered a medical situation and is out for an unlimited time so that could well make us short nine for a period of time until he is able to return and that's Justin Paseo County overall in the state chief justice ravner pointed out that at worst we should have 20 to 30 vacancies at any given time right now we have 55 with another 11 scheduled for the 2023. those 11 will be retiring at the end of the year the Paseo closure comes just a few weeks after enough judges were confirmed and placed into the Cumberland Gloucester and Salem counties allowing them to resume but says Timothy McLaughlin president of the State Bar Association we can't go on playing a game with whack-a-mole in New Jersey to have one business shut down and another one um to uh to open up it's an issue the governor's office and legislative leaders in the state have acknowledged we're working diligently to fill those with the governor's office and said they'd focus on this summer we will most likely come back in July to consider additional nominations after we've screened them but so far no special Judiciary Committee sessions have been held this summer it's July 31st summer is wine down so if they're going to have a special session it needs to happen sooner rather than later attorneys and representatives of the bar association say more should have should have been done sooner we are all largely disappointed because this is a problem that we had seen coming we already were suffering as a result of the backlog that was created during the pandemic what about the families who are draining their resources every single day because they're waiting for their day they're waiting for their trial they're waiting for their event to come and go but it never actually happens because the trials are at a standstill please we're calling out and we're saying we need you to expedite these appointments we need to fill these seats it's not a matter of maybe at this point it's a matter of crisis in the meantime the Paseo County Bar Association is working to come up with alternative solutions to help move cases along we are creating settlement programs mediation programs and as a bar association we are dedicating and volunteering our time to help but with nearly 5 000 divorce cases in the state at a standstill those efforts simply can't fill the void that's missing at the bench for NJ Spotlight News I'm Joanna Gagis [Music] [Music]