TRI v TRJ

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Eugene Tay
• Judgment Date: 30 August 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGFC 103
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: MSS 3832/2015
• Year: 2016
• Published date: 04 November 2016
• Hearing Date: 16 May 2016,14 June 2016,27 April 2016,03 March 2016
• Plaintiff Counsel: Abdul Rahman (M/s Abdul Rahman Law Corporation)
• Defendant Counsel: Mirza Namazie / Ong Ai Wen (M/s Mallal & Namazie)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Maintenance for Wife and Children
• Citation: [2016] SGFC 103

District Judge Eugene Tay: Introduction

The present application (“the Application”) was brought by the complainant Ms TRI (“the Complainant”) against the respondent Mr TRJ (“the Respondent”) for maintenance for herself, as a wife, and two (2) children, a son presently aged 9 (“the Son”) and a daughter presently aged 7 (“the Daughter”), collectively (“the Children”), under section 69 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353) (“the Women’s Charter”) on 1 September 2015.

The matter was heard on 3 March 2016 (“the 1st Tranche), 27 April 2016 (“the 2nd Tranche”) and 16 May 2016 (“the 3rd Tranche”). The Complainant was represented by Mr Abdul Rahman (“Mr Rahman”). The Respondent was represented by Mr Mirza Namazie (“Mr Namazie”) and Ms Ong Ai Wen.

On 14 June 2016, after considering the evidence and written submissions tendered by parties, I made the following orders: [The Respondent] shall pay [the Complainant] the sum of SGD 2,400.00 a month as maintenance of [the Complainant] and [the Children] with effect from 30 June 2016 and thereafter on the last day of each month. Payments to be paid into [the Complainant’s] CITIBANK Account number xxx. No order as to costs.

The Complainant has appealed against all the orders set out at [3] above.

I now set out my reasons for my decision.

Documents

For good order, I will set out the various documents that parties sought to rely on for the hearing.

Prior to the 1st Tranche, parties had tendered the following affidavits: Complainant’s Affidavit of Means affirmed on 28 October 2015 – “C1”; Complainant’s Affidavit in Reply affirmed on 20 November 2015 – “C2”; Respondent’s Affidavit of Evidence-in-Chief affirmed on 29 October 2015 – “R1”; Respondent’s Affidavit in Reply affirmed on 4 December 2015 – “R2”.

At the 1st Tranche, Mr Namazie sought to admit additional documents on behalf of the Respondent. The first document was the Respondent’s current salary slip from xxx (“NCS”). The second set of documents comprised a document titled “Divorce Registration Certificate” (purportedly) from “(t)he Govt (sic) of Punjab Pakistan ” between the Respondent and the Complainant (in English and in a foreign language) and a document titled “Divorce Certificate” (purportedly) from the Secretary, Union Council, Sargodha with translation in a foreign language (collectively, the “Alleged Divorce Documents”).

Mr Rahman did not object to the Respondent’s salary slip from NCS being admitted into evidence. However, Mr Rahman objected to the Alleged Divorce Documents being admitted into evidence. In the event the Court allowed the Alleged Divorce Documents, Mr Rahman sought an adjournment of four weeks for the Complainant to file and serve an affidavit in response to this document. Mr Namazie objected to four weeks adjournment. In the event the Court allowed the adjournment, Mr Namazie asked for two weeks to file a reply affidavit.

I allowed the additional documents. The salary slip from NCS was marked as “R3”, and the Alleged Divorce Documents were collectively marked as “R4”. I also allowed the Complainant to tender an affidavit limited to responding to the Alleged Divorce Documents by 31 March 2016, and the Respondent to tender a reply affidavit limited to responding to the Complainant’s further affidavit by 14 April 2016.

On the Complainant’s part, Mr Rahman sought to admit an additional bundle of documents containing 20 tabs of documents. Mr Namazie objected to the same.

The documents at Tabs 1 to 13 of the additional bundle of documents were already exhibited in the Complainant’s affidavits “C1” and “C2”. In addition, I was of the view that the documents at Tabs 14 to 20 were not relevant or necessary for the purpose of the hearing. As such, I disallowed the additional bundle of documents to be admitted into evidence.

Further to my directions at [10] above, the Complainant tendered a further affidavit affirmed on 30 March 2016 – “C3”. The Respondent subsequently tendered a reply affidavit affirmed on 14 April 2016 – “R5”. Both “C3” and “R5” were tendered to Court prior to the 2nd Tranche.

At the 2nd Tranche, Mr Namazie sought to tender a two page document being a tabulation of the list of expenses allegedly incurred by the Complainant. No objection was raised. This document was marked as “R6”.

At the 3rd Tranche, Mr Namazie sought to tender a single page document being a list of payments allegedly remitted by the Respondent to the Complainant from November 2014 to July 2015. Again, no objection was raised. This document was marked as “R7”.

Background facts

For a start, there were differences in parties’ respective accounts of sequence of events that took place since parties were married to the time the Complainant brought the Application. I would only set out the salient background facts (as gleaned from the various documents) which were relevant and necessary for the determination of this matter.

Parties were married on 4 September 2002 in the United States (“the US”), New York, under Muslim law. It was not in dispute that parties also underwent a civil marriage in the US the same day on 4 September 2002. Two years later, parties moved to Kansas City, US, and registered their Muslim marriage there on 1 March 2005. The Son was born in the US on 18 October 2006, while the Daughter was born in the US on 9 December 2008.

The Respondent’s marriage with the Complainant was his second marriage. He has a daughter presently aged 16 years from his first marriage, who lives in Pakistan with the Respondent’s first ex-wife.

At present, the Complainant is a citizen of the US, while the Respondent is a Pakistani national and a Permanent Resident of Singapore. It was disputed whether the Complainant held dual citizenship in the US and Pakistan.

In February 2007, the Respondent came to Singapore to work, while the Complainant remained behind in the US with the Children. At the time of the hearing, the Respondent was working as an xxx with NCS. I had noted that the Respondent’s evidence of his employment history and the circumstances leading up to him finding employment with NCS was not challenged by the Complainant.

It was not disputed that the Respondent was at all material times the sole bread-winner, and that the Complainant had been unemployed ever since the Children were born. At the time the Application was heard, the Complainant was still unemployed.

On or about 12 August 2015, the Respondent allegedly pronounced talak on the Complainant in Pakistan, purporting to dissolve the marriage under Muslim Law, and proceeded to register the divorce in Pakistan. I would deal with this further at the later part of my judgment below (at [32] to [36]).

On or about 29 August 2015, the Complainant came to Singapore with the Children. On 1 September 2015, the Complainant filed the Application.

Applicable law

On maintenance for a wife, section 69(1) of the Women’s Charter provides that:

“Any married woman whose husband neglects or refuses to provide her reasonable maintenance may apply to a District Court or a Magistrate’s Court and that Court may, on due proof thereof, order the husband to pay a monthly allowance or a lump sum for her maintenance.”

In addition, section 69(1) of the Women’s Charter allows the civil courts to order maintenance for a woman married under Muslim law (Chaytor Alan James v Zaleha bte A Rahman [2001] SGHC 56 (“Chaytor”) at [8]).

On maintenance of children, section 69(2) of the Women’s Charter provides that:

“A District Court or a Magistrate’s Court may, on due proof that a parent has neglected or refused to provide reasonable maintenance for his child who is unable to maintain himself, order that parent to pay a monthly allowance or a lump sum for the maintenance of that child.”

Under section 69(4) of the Women’s Charter, the Court when ordering maintenance for a wife or child shall have regard to all the circumstances of the case including the following matters: the financial needs of the wife or child; the income, earning capacity (if any), property and other financial resources of the wife or child; any physical or mental disability of the wife or child; the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the marriage; the contributions made by each of the parties to the marriage to the welfare of the family, including any contribution made by looking after the home or caring for the family; the standard of living enjoyed by the wife or child before the husband or parent, as the case may be, neglected or refused to provide reasonable maintenance for the wife or child; in the case of a child, the manner in which he was being, and in which the parties to the marriage expected him to be, educated or trained; and the conduct of each of the parties to the marriage, if the conduct is such that it would in the opinion of the court be inequitable to disregard it.

In Foo Ah Yan v Chiam Heng Chow [2012] 2 SLR 506 (cited in TEM v TEN [2014] SGDC 238 (“TEM”) at [17]), the Court of Appeal observed at [22]: “22 Furthermore, the duty of a husband to maintain his wife during the marriage, as provided by s69(1) of the Act, and the obligation to provide maintenance to a former wife under s113 of the Act are driven by separate forces. As Prof Leong Wai Kum pointed out in Elements of Family Law in Singapore ([15] supra) at p476:

‘In the former situation, the objective is to provide modest maintenance, namely to help her overcome her immediate financial need which may well be the same objective when ordering maintenance for a dependent child. In the latter situation, maintenance ordered for a former wife, however, serves the far more ambitious objective of giving her a fair share of the surplus wealth that had been acquired by the spouse during the subsistence of the marriage…’ ”

Although the above views expressed by the Court of Appeal were made obiter, they,...