UXH v UXI
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Chia Wee Kiat |
| Judgment Date | 17 June 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] SGFC 64 |
| Court | Family Court (Singapore) |
| Docket Number | FC/D 708/2015 (FC/SUM 237/2019) |
| Published date | 21 June 2019 |
| Year | 2019 |
| Hearing Date | 22 May 2019 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Shereen Goklani and Gloria James-Civetta (Gloria James-Civetta) |
| Defendant Counsel | Koh Tien Hua and Shaun Ho (Eversheds Harry Elias) |
| Subject Matter | Family law,Relocation |
| Citation | [2019] SGFC 64 |
The Plaintiff shall be referred to as the “Mother” and the Defendant shall be referred to as the “Father”. In the main, this is an application filed by the Mother under FC/SUM 237/2019 (“SUM 237”) to be granted “leave of court to leave the jurisdiction of Singapore permanently with the children of the marriage by a date to be determined by the court and in any event no later than July 2019 to settle on a permanent basis in Danbury or its surroundings, in Chelmsford, United Kingdom (“UK”)”. The circumstances leading up to this application are briefly as follows.
The parties are Portuguese citizens and both hold Singapore Permanent Residency. The Mother is 38 years old while the Father is 40 years old. They have been resident in Singapore since 2008 and became Singapore Permanent Residents (“PRs”) in 2011.1 They have two children to the marriage, a boy aged 6 and a girl who turns 11 in June. In this judgment, I shall refer to them as Xavier and Yvette (not their real names) respectively. The children are Portuguese citizens and Singapore PRs. They were born in Singapore and have lived here all their lives. Yvette is in Year 6 whilst Xavier is in Year 1 in an international school in Singapore.
The Father has a successful career in an architecture firm where he has worked for over 10 years and has risen to the position of Executive Principal. The Mother is also an architect by profession.
The Mother met the Father whilst they were both studying at the university in Lisbon, Portugal. They were married on 22 December 2007. In 2008 they moved to Singapore. She is currently a Director of Project Management of a subsidiary of a multinational company.
On 16 February 2015, the Mother filed for divorce in the Family Court. The divorce was initially contested with the Father filing a Defence and Counterclaim on 6 March 2015. Shortly thereafter, the parties came to a resolution on the divorce and an Interim Judgment was granted on 18 June 2015 on an uncontested basis. On 8 July 2015, the parties entered into a global settlement on the ancillary matters (hereinafter referred to as the “consent order”). Final Judgment was granted on 29 September 2015. The divorce proceedings were thus concluded on an amicable note.
Under the consent order, the parties agreed to have joint custody of the children with care and control to the Mother and reasonable access to the Father, for a minimum of one day and one night every weekend per week, such access to be agreed around both the parents’ and the children’s respective schedules. Paragraph 3(c) of the consent order, which provides for the possible relocation of either party, states as follows:
In the event of a possible relocation by either party, the Plaintiff and the Defendant agree that parties will mutually discuss and come to a mutual consensus and/or agreement of the same taking the children’s welfare as paramount consideration.
Both parties have moved on in their lives and formed new relationships. The Mother has a partner [“A”] who is British. According to the Mother, A has lived with the Mother and the children since October 2017 and shares “a beautiful and strong bond” with the children.2 A has two daughters aged 14 years and 10 years respectively who are residing in Chelmsford, UK. A’s daughters have met Xavier and Yvette on several occasions over the years during the occasional school holidays and summer breaks. Xavier and Yvette have developed a close bond with A’s daughters. The Mother and A have decided to relocate to the UK. The Mother intends to marry A in Spring-Summer 2020 and hopes for a new beginning for the children.3
The Father has a partner [“B”] who owns her own media company. According to the Father, the children share a close relationship with B who thinks of them as her own children. Since 1 January 2019, the Father has moved in to live with B in her three-room condominium on account of his firm intention to establish a life with B on a more permanent basis. B has two daughters who share a close bond with Xavier and Yvette.
The Mother filed SUM 237 on 18 January 2019. Prior to the filing of the application, the Mother had asked the Father in August 2018 if he was agreeable to the children relocating to the UK with her. Unfortunately, the parties were unable to come to a consensus on this matter. In light of the Father’s objection to the relocation, the Mother proceeded to take out the present application.
The application was heard before me on 22 May 2019. In her supporting affidavit, the Mother had alluded to the family’s apprehensions about Xavier having to serve national service (“NS”) in Singapore. According to the Mother, the family had intended to leave Singapore before Xavier turns 11 years old before he gets called up for NS.4 The Father disputes this assertion. According to the Father, Xavier will not be exempted from NS just because he leaves Singapore before the age of 11. Moreover, the Father is proud to see Xavier undergo NS when that time comes.5
I reserved my decision upon confirmation from counsel for the Mother that she would seek the necessary clarification with regard to Xavier’s NS requirements. Although this is only one of the matters to be taken into consideration, it is important for the issue to be clarified so that the correct fact is properly presented to the court. Moreover, important decisions affecting children should not be based on erroneous assumptions, especially on a matter as serious as relocation.
Counsel for the Father has no objection for the clarification to be provided to the court by way of correspondence. Parties are also agreeable for the decision of the court to be thereafter rendered in writing. This is permissible under Rule 670(2) of the Family Justice Rules which provides as follows:
In any proceedings referred to in paragraph (1), the Court may, with the consent of all the parties to those proceedings, give a judgment, or make an order, a decision or a determination, on any matter in those proceedings without the attendance of any party to those proceedings.
The proceedings referred to in paragraph (1) of Rule 670 include proceedings in a Family Court and hence apply to the present case. The parties have also indicated that they would prefer to submit on costs in writing after a decision has been rendered.
Counsel for the Mother has since reverted to the court
As noted earlier, this application concerns the permanent relocation of two young children of a marriage that has irretrievably broken down. Relocation of children is one of the most challenging decisions that the court is called upon to decide in family disputes. As the Court of Appeal observed in
Cases of this nature are never easy to decide. As Mostyn J observed pithily in the English High Court decision of
Re AR (A Child: Relocation) [2010] EWHC 1346 (Fam) at [4], “[t]hey involve a binary decision – either the child stays or he goes” and hence, whichever way the court decides, the decision is bound to cause considerable pain and anguish to one of the parties. The relocating parent will be aggrieved by a refusal of the application as that ostensibly ties him or her down, against his or her wishes, to an environment which he or she has little affinity towards. On the other hand, it is the left-behind parent who suffers if the relocation application is allowed because that naturally curtails not just the quantity but also the quality of that parent’s contact with the child (or children).
These observations of Debbie Ong JC (as she then was) in
The legal principle guiding the courts in relocation applications in Singapore is similar to that in many countries: the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration. This principle itself is simple enough in concept but very challenging in its application to each unique case. The main difficulty rests in the tension between upholding the primary carer or custodial parent’s freedom to relocate and the child’s interest in maintaining a relationship with both parents within the same country.
I have considered very carefully the parties’ submissions and weighed all factors relevant to the inquiry. In the final analysis, I find that the scales do not tip in favour of relocation at this time and accordingly, the Mother’s application should be refused. I should state, at the outset, that my decision is not intended in any way to deny the Mother’s wish to start a new life. On the contrary, I find it heartening that both parties have moved on and found new partners of their own. However, a decision on relocation is based ultimately on the welfare of the children. On the facts before me, I am simply unable to find that the Mother’s wish to relocate is compatible with the best interests of the children. I set out below the reasons for my decision.
The Mother’s application The Mother submits that it is in the children’s best interests to be relocated with her to the UK in July 2019.6 These are the key points from the Mother’s written submissions:
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