Teh Siew Hua v Tan Kim Chiong
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Steven Chong J |
Judgment Date | 04 June 2010 |
Neutral Citation | [2010] SGHC 172 |
Year | 2010 |
Date | 04 June 2010 |
Published date | 21 June 2010 |
Hearing Date | 04 May 2010,20 April 2010,30 March 2010 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Lim Hui Min (Legal Aid Bureau) |
Citation | [2010] SGHC 172 |
Defendant Counsel | The Respondent in person. |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
Docket Number | Divorce Petition No 2178 of 1991 (Summons No 600037 of 2010) |
This was an application by Mdm Teh Siew Hua (“the Petitioner”) under s 112(4) of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) to vary an order made by the High Court in a Decree Nisi granted on 30 January 1992, some 19 years ago.
At the end of the hearing, I granted the Petitioner’s application, but in view of the novel point this case raised under the Limitation Act (Cap 163, 1996 Rev Ed) (“the Act”), I now give the reasons for my decision. I was informed by counsel for the Petitioner, Ms Lim Hui Min, that the situation faced by the Petitioner is not an uncommon one and therefore it would be useful for a reasoned decision to be delivered.
BackgroundThe marriage between the Petitioner and Mr Tan Kim Chiong (“the Respondent”), solemnised on 4 January 1965, was dissolved by a Decree Nisi dated 30 January 1992 granted by K S Rajah JC. It was further ordered in para 1 of the Decree Nisi that:
The Respondent do transfer his interest in the matrimonial property known as “Blk 813 Tampines Street 81, #11-544, Singapore 1852” to the Petitioner.
The Decree Nisi was made absolute on 26 May 1992, but the Respondent took no steps to comply with the order and transfer his interest in the matrimonial property (now known as “Blk 813 Tampines Street 81, #11-544, Singapore 520813”) to the Petitioner. On her part, the Petitioner took no steps to compel the Respondent to effect the transfer until recently, in November 2009, when she requested that the Respondent do so. As the Petitioner was getting on in years, she decided to take steps to regularise the situation to ensure that her beneficiaries,
The Respondent, however, refused to comply, and asked for the property to be sold and the proceeds to be divided equally. Such a course of action being unacceptable to the Petitioner, she then applied, via the Legal Aid Bureau, to vary the Decree Nisi by including the following two orders:
The Respondent challenged the application on the sole basis that he had no knowledge of the order because both the petition and the consequent order were not served on him. This initially posed difficulties to the Petitioner since the order was made some time ago and she was unable to fully explain the circumstances under which the order came to be made. Eventually, however, the Legal Aid Bureau managed to retrieve the court file and an affidavit was filed to exhibit the earlier affidavit of service which was filed for the Decree Nisi. It was clear from the affidavit of service that the Respondent had knowledge of the petition. Given that it happened so long ago, it was perhaps understandable that the Respondent was unable to recall the precise circumstances under which the order was made.
Although this effectively disposed of the objection raised by the Respondent, I expressed concern at the hearing that there might be a question of a time bar. The Decree Nisi was granted in 1992, but the Petitioner had failed to take any step to enforce the order therein for 19 years. In particular, I queried whether:
Counsel for the Petitioner, Ms Lim, was able to expeditiously furnish me with a clear and comprehensive set of submissions and authorities which addressed these questions, and I would like to record my deep appreciation and gratitude to her and the Legal Aid Bureau for their assistance in this matter, as well as for the commendable work that they do.
Preliminary Observations on s 112(4) of the WWomen’s CharterThe power of the court to vary an order as to the division of matrimonial assets is to be found in s 112(4) of the Women’s Charter, which reads:
The court may,
at any time it thinks fit , extend, vary, revoke or discharge any order made under this section, and may vary any term or condition upon or subject to which any such order has been made.[emphasis added]
It has been suggested that an order for the division of matrimonial assets is a “one-off order” and as such, does not allow for variation: Leong Wai Kum,
The express wording of s 112(4) of the Women’s Charter (
Whether the Application was Time-Barred under s 6(3) of the Act[I]t follows from the absence of any common law concept of limitation that in the event of a lacuna in the statutory provisions, no limitation period will apply.
Section 6(3) of the Act provides:
An action upon any judgment shall not be brought after the expiration of 12 years from the date on which the judgment became enforceable and no arrears of interest in respect of any judgment debt shall be recovered after the expiration of 6 years from the date on which the interest became due.
“Action” is defined in s 2 of the Act as including “a suit or any other proceedings in a court”. It followed, therefore, that if the Petitioner’s application was “an action upon any judgment”, it would have been time-barred by the operation of s 6(3) of the Act.
In my view, the Petitioner’s application was not “an action upon any judgment”, and s 112(4) of the Women’s Charter was therefore not subject to s 6(3) of the Act.
The Act was based on the UK’s Limitation Act 1939 (2 & 3 Geo 6, c 21) (see [50] of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in
Following the final report of the Law Reform Committee on“Action” includes any proceedings in a court of law, including an ecclesiastical court.
Given the history of the Act, English judgments on the scope of s 2(4) of the Limitation Act 1939 and s 24(1) of the Limitation Act 1980 are highly persuasive authorities on the interpretation of s 6(3) of the Act. Indeed, the Court of Appeal in
The reference is toIn our view, since [the Act] can be traced back to the 1939 UK Limitation Act, Brandon J’s decision in
Berliner Industriebank is authoritative on the ambit of ss 6(1)(a ) and 6(3) of [the Act]…[emphasis added]
In
Rejecting this contention, Scott LJ held at 338 that s 2(4) of the Limitation Act 1939 dealt only with the substantive right to sue for and obtain a judgment, while RSC Ord 42 was only concerned with the procedural machinery for enforcing a judgment that had already been obtained. Scott LJ then concluded that:
The two subjects were formerly quite independent and distinct, the one from the other, and we are quite unable to attribute to the definition of "action" in the Limitation Act, 1939, the effect of merging the two together.
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