AD v AE
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Choo Han Teck J |
Judgment Date | 22 October 2003 |
Neutral Citation | [2003] SGHC 258 |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
Published date | 06 May 2004 |
Year | 2003 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Nicholas F Cheong (Lim Soo Peng and Co) |
Defendant Counsel | David Rasif with Michelle Woodworth (David Rasif and Partners) |
Subject Matter | Civil Procedure,Appeals,Notice,Notice of appeal against custody order not served within the time prescribed,Application for extension of time to serve notice of appeal,Whether extension should be granted,Custody proceedings,Welfare of child paramount |
Citation | [2003] SGHC 258 |
1 This is an appeal by the petitioner (husband) against my orders of 18 September 2003. The dispute concerned the custody of the son of the parties. The son is 5 years old and was a progeny of the union between the petitioner and respondent. There were two other children both girls aged 7 and 8 respectively who were the daughters of the respondent by another man. The family court judge granted custody of the daughters to the respondent with no access to the petitioner. The petitioner was granted custody of the son with week-end access to the respondent.
2 The respondent (wife) wishes to appeal against the order granted custody of the son to the petitioner. The appeal was fixed for hearing before me on 18 September 2003 together with a summons-in-chambers in which the respondent applied for an extension of time to serve the notice of appeal on the petitioner.
3 The time limited for filing the Notice of Appeal was 11 June 2003. The Notice of Appeal was issued on that day. The notice was, however, not served on the petitioner until 6 August 2003 although the rules prescribed that the service must be served within seven days, namely by 18 June 2003.
4 The issue in the substantive appeal concerned the custody of a 5 year old child. In such proceedings the welfare of the child is of paramount importance. That is a statutory decree backed by the common law. In such cases, the interests of the parties themselves are secondary to the interests of the child, and for that reason, I exercised my discretion in granting leave to serve the Notice of Appeal out of time. I also ordered the parties to produce the child in court and, consequently, arguments in respect of the merits of the appeal had to be deferred accordingly. Against these orders the petitioner appeals. Counsel relied on Stansfield Business International Pte Ltd v Vithya Sri Sumathis
To continue reading
Request your trial-
AD v AE
...no appeal. But he felt he should extend time in this case because the appeal concerned the welfare of a child. This was what he stated ([2003] SGHC 258 at The issue in the substantive appeal concerned the custody of a [five-year-old] child. In such proceedings the welfare of the child is of......
-
Family Law
...the extension because the issue in the substantive appeal concerned the welfare of a child, which was of paramount importance (see [2003] SGHC 258). The Court of Appeal disagreed. Family cases were to be considered in the same manner as other cases. The Rules of Court did not differentiate,......