TLD v TLE

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sowaran Singh
• Judgment Date: 24 February 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGFC 28
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: D132 of 2009, FC/SUM 3998 of 2015 & FC/SUM 34 of 2016
• Published date: 10 March 2016
• Year: 2016
• Hearing Date: 10 February 2016,27 January 2016
• Plaintiff Counsel: Plaintiff (In Person). Defendant (In Person).
• Subject Matter: Family Law,relocation of child
• Citation: [2016] SGFC 28

District Judge Sowaran Singh: Background

The Plaintiff (“father”) is the ex-husband of the Defendant (“mother”). They have one child from the union a girl (“H”) who is 11 years old¹. They were described² as being 31 and 32 years old respectively with the father being a Singapore citizen and the mother a Malaysian citizen. They were married in March 2004 and their marriage was dissolved on the 11th May 2010 with Interim Judgment (IJ) being granted on the ground that mother had behaved unreasonably. The ancillaries were resolved by consent and made part of the IJ as well. They were given joint custody of H with care and control to the mother and reasonable access to the father. The access was not specified. The father was to pay the mother a sum of $250 for the maintenance of H. There were also other orders dealing with the matrimonial home and other ancillary matters. Final Judgement (FJ) was granted on the 24th August 2010.

Several years later 4 other orders were made namely:

- on the 22nd April 2013 in SUM 2965/2012 the IJ was varied in that the reasonable access to the father was now specified. The access specified was to be assisted at the Centre for Family Harmony (CFH) for 8 sessions once a week for one hour. Thereafter, there was to be assisted one-way transfer at the CFH on every Saturday from 2pm to 7pm. The father was also to have liberal telephone access until 9pm. The mother was also to provide the father with the child’s assessment reports and school report cards within 7 days of receiving them from the school as well as details of Parent-Teacher meetings and other school activities like field trips, excursions and co-curricular events. The arrears of maintenance due to the mother were to be deducted from the father’s share of the net sales proceeds of the home. The mother’s application in SUM 7168/2012 for sole custody of the child and several other orders including lump sum maintenance of $54,200 for the child were dismissed with costs.

-on the 13th August 2013 in SUM 7846/2013 the maintenance payable by the father for the child was increased to $400 a month. However, no order was made on the mother’s application for a lump sum maintenance order of $59,400³ for the child.

- the father appealed against the 13th August 2013 orders in RAS 129/2013 and on the 18th February 2014 the High Court ordered that: $400 was to be paid until August 2104; $450 from September 2014 until March 2014 and $500 from April 2015 onwards by monthly GIRO payments. The parties neither had a copy of this High Court order nor was this order extracted by them. Hence, at the end of the hearing the court gave both parties a copy of these orders⁴ made by the High Court on the 18th February 2014 so that they could extract it in the proper format.

- on the 4th March 2014 in SUM 1347/2014 (Amendment No.1) a consent order was made giving the father weekly access to the child for 5 hours either on Saturday or Sunday. In the event that weekly access could not take place, the parties were to agree on a make-up access session during the child’s school holidays or public holidays. After a final one-way access at the CFH on the 22nd March 2014, the above access arrangements were to take effect. This order (the Order) too has yet to be extracted by the parties although they had a handwritten copy of it.

The Applications in SUM 3992/2015 and SUM 34/2016

On the 16th December 2015 the father filed SUM 3992/2015 in which he applied for “enforcing”⁵ the orders dated 22nd April 2013 and 4th March 2014 and “non-compliance” with the amended SUM 1347/2014. He recited the following at paragraph 2 of his SUM: “The Defendant taking the child to overseas for education without my knowledge”.

On the 6th January 2016 the mother filed her application to vary the 22nd April 2013 order of court for her to be allowed to send the child to Gxxx Ixxx School in Penang (“the school”) and that the father have only assisted access to the child in Penang upon giving prior notice to her. The parties were to share the access to the child during the school holiday period of July and August. The father was to be allowed to have liberal telephone access to the child.

The Father’s Position in Brief

The father in his affidavit⁶ said he wanted to prevent the mother from taking their child out of the jurisdiction. On the 11th December 2015 the mother had informed him through a text message that she intended to take the child to Penang for the child’s education commencing on the 4th January 2016. He did not know when the child would be travelling or the school where she would be attending. The mother also informed him that she (the mother) would not be staying in Penang and the child would be in the care of her parents. The mother had not obtained his written consent for the relocation. He was not willing to consent to the relocation of their child. He was concerned about the child’s welfare, safety and living conditions. The child would also have less time with him. As the mother would also not be residing with the child this would be detrimental to the child’s welfare. The mother had refused to comply with the order of court dated 4th March 2014 obtained in respect of his amended SUM 1347/2014 under which he was to have access to their child every Saturday from 3pm to 8pm. The mother had also not complied with the order of court dated 22nd April 2013 (in SUM 2965/2012). The mother had not provided him with the child’s report cards, assessment reports or details of Parent-Teacher meetings since the child commenced her primary education in 2010.

The Mother’s Position in Brief

The mother in her affidavit⁷ asked that the child be allowed to study in Penang as this would ensure that the child had a chance to do well academically. She had been the main care giver of the child ever since the divorce when the child was only 6 years old and the child had been living with her since then. She was a Singapore Permanent Resident (SPR) since 2005 and had been living in Singapore since 2000. Prior to that she used to live with her parents in Penang. She was now working in Singapore. Unfortunately the child was not doing well in her studies in the primary school in Singapore and she exhibited the child’s primary five school results. The child took Mandarin as a second language and was struggling with the subject. Her application for the child to be exempted from taking a second language was refused by the Ministry of Education (MOE). To improve the child’s studies she had put the child through group tuition as well as individual tuition. However, the child’s primary five school results were still disappointing. As the child would be sitting for her Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) at the end of this year (2016), she believed that the child would not fare well and this would disadvantage the child academically. The child would then be streamed to the Normal Technical Stream where she would only be able to do technical studies at the ITE. The child would be unable to sit for her GCE “O” and GCE “A” levels if this were to happen. This would limit the child’s academic future.

When she learned that there was an international school was recently started in Penang she looked at its curriculum (she exhibited the school’s brochure) and realised that it would be a better alternative academically for the child. The school was based on the UK education system. The child would have an opportunity to study up to the GCE”A” level and might qualify for a university education. The classes in that school consisted of about 12 students per class. She believed that the child would benefit from this smaller class size compared to her current environment where the class size was 40 students per class. The other consideration was that her parents were living there as well as her younger sister. The child would live with her parents and her father was a retired senior army officer and currently director of his own security firm. Her mother was a housewife. Her younger sister was 28 years old and a senior staff nurse. She too lived with the parents and would be helping to look after the child as well as tutor the child in her studies. Her parents’ home was just a few minutes away from the school. It was a landed property with 5 bedrooms and in a very safe neighbourhood. Her parents had been living there for the past 18 years since 1997. Her father’s late brother’s family also lived nearby and they had a grandchild who was about 13 years old and would be good company for the daughter.

As a single working mother she was unable to spend as much time with the child as she would have liked. The father contributed $500 monthly for the child’s maintenance. She lived in rented premises and did not have the same family support that the child would get in Penang. Besides family support, her father had agreed to pay for the child’s education in the school. He had paid for the initial deposit, 1st term fees and meal costs which came to about MR$19,500. She exhibited the school documents in support. She was also contributing to the fees on a monthly basis and was prepared to provide proof that she remitted the money if the father so wished. In the child were to stay in Singapore she would have to employ domestic helper and this would cost about $700 monthly...