WNO v WNP

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chia Wee Kiat
• Judgment Date: 16 June 2023
• Neutral Citation: [2023] SGFC 19
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: D 3176 of 2020 (FC/SUM 3190/2022, FC/SUM 3864/2022)
• Hearing Date: 06 February 2023,16 February 2023,10 March 2023,24 March 2023,18 May 2023
• Citation: [2023] SGFC 19
• Year: 2023
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Stuart Andrew Palmer and Ms Nur Liyana Binte Mohamad Sinwan (K&L Gates Straits Law LLB)
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Ong ZhengHui Wayne (Wayne Ong Law Practice)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Child,Relocation
• Published date: 23 June 2023

District Judge Chia Wee Kiat: Background

The Plaintiff shall be referred to as the “Father” and the Defendant shall be referred to as the “Mother”.

FC/SUM 3190/2022 (“SUM 3190”) is the Mother’s application to relocate the child of the marriage, [L], to New York, USA.¹ I heard the application on 6 February 2023 and called for a Specific Issue Report (“SIR”) to provide me with a fuller picture of the family in my determination as to whether it is in the best interests of the child to allow the relocation application.

The Father filed a cross-application vide FC/SUM 3864/2022 (“SUM 3864”) which was also heard on 6 February 2023. The Father explained that he had sought the Mother’s consent for the child to be enrolled in a primary school in Singapore without prejudice to the Mother’s relocation application.² This was to ensure that the child’s education would not be unnecessarily delayed by an academic year in the event that the Mother’s relocation is unsuccessful. The Mother objected to the Father’s request.

I was of the view that the child’s education should not be disrupted by the ongoing court proceedings and encouraged both parties to discuss the matter amicably in the hope that they would come to a sensible resolution on their own. Parenting decisions are intensely personal and should ordinarily be made by the parents themselves. The court should be the last resort.

The parties were given time to discuss including making visits to the schools. Unfortunately, they were not able to come to a resolution. Despite the Father’s preparedness to compromise by accepting the primary school previously proposed by the Mother, the Mother rejected the offer.³ In the face of the impasse, I made the following orders on 24 March 2023:

Without prejudice to the Mother’s relocation application, the child shall be enrolled in a Primary School in Singapore for the academic year commencing 2023.

The parties shall propose one Primary School in Singapore each within a week and shall discuss and agree between the two options within 2 weeks.

In the event that parties are unable to reach an agreement, the Father shall be at liberty to decide on the Primary School.

The parties shall mutually discuss and agree on the apportionment of the school fees for the Primary School with liberty to apply in the event that they are unable to come to an agreement.

Costs reserved to be dealt with SUM 3190.

Subsequent to the above decision, I received the SIR dated 17 April 2023 in respect of the Mother’s relocation application. I fixed the matter for decision on 28 April 2023, which was refixed to 18 May 2023 at the request of the Mother.

On 18 May 2023, I dismissed the Mother’s relocation application with brief grounds. As the Mother has appealed against my decision vide HCF/DCA 50/2023 filed on 31 May 2023, I now set out in full the reasons for my decision.

Background

The Father is an Italian citizen and a Singapore Employment Pass holder. He is the owner of a company which he founded in Singapore in 2007 and has been living in Singapore since 2007.⁴

The Mother is a Singapore Permanent Resident holding both Belgian and French citizenships.⁵ She works as a consultant.⁶

The parties married on 4 June 2017 in Singapore.⁷ They have one child to the marriage, L, who turns 6 this year.⁸ The child was born in Singapore⁹ and currently attends Kindergarten 2.¹⁰

According to the Father, the Mother’s open and increasing drug use sometime after L was born caused him much distress and put a great strain on their marriage. In February 2019, after several unsuccessful attempts to persuade the Mother to stop including speaking to her brother to intervene,¹¹ the Father had no choice but to report the Mother so that she would get the assistance needed at the Drug Rehabilitation Centre (“DRC”). The Father did not want L to be exposed to drug use, especially when the user was her own mother,¹²

On 27 February 2019, the Father filed FC/OSG 26/2019 (“OSG 26”) seeking sole custody and sole care and control of L. On 27 May 2019, the parties entered into a consent order which provided, inter alia, that the parties shall have joint custody of L and upon the Mother’s release from the DRC, the parties shall have shared care and control of L.

The Father filed for divorce on 29 July 2020.¹³ The mother contested the divorce initially but the parties were able to resolve all matters amicably through mediation.¹⁴ On 17 March 2021, Interim Judgment (“IJ”) was granted on an uncontested basis. The consent orders recorded under the IJ provided, inter alia, that the parties shall continue to have joint custody and shared care and control of L as set out in the court order dated 27 May 2019 in OSG 26.

The Mother has since remarried. The Mother’s current husband, [C], is French and resides in New York, USA with his family of three children.¹⁵

Mother’s relocation application

The Mother says that C has built a thriving business in the USA and has built a life in the USA. C is planning to apply for a green card, and as his wife, the Mother would obtain one as well and remain in the USA as a permanent resident.¹⁶

The Mother says that her work allows her freedom to work from home and it would make far more sense for her to move to New York, USA than for C to relocate his family to Singapore.¹⁷ The Mother says that her decision to move to New York was not an easy one to make and it took her a lot of time and discussion with her family. She had to think of L’s interests foremost and believes that her choice to move there with L is the right one and in L’s best interests.¹⁸

The Mother believes that the Father objects to the relocation because of his resentment against her. The Mother says that the Father is upset that she has moved on from him and wishes to hurt her by using L as leverage against her. ¹⁹

Father’s objections

The Father does not believe that relocating from Singapore to New York will be in L’s best interests. The Father believes that the move is motivated by the Mother’s own wishes and desires without any true consideration for L’s interests.²⁰

The Father says that Singapore is the only country L has known as home.²¹ L loves going to places such as the Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, Takashimaya, Bouncy Paradise at Ayer Rajah Community Club, the beaches at Sentosa and East Coast Park, SEA Aquarium, Universal Studios, Pulau Ubin, and various playgrounds, and dinning at some of her favourite spots such as Wee Nam Kee Chicken Rice and Din Tai Fung. L has grown up together with a community of friends in Singapore and is very popular and well-liked.²²

In contrast, New York will be a completely foreign place for L. L has never been to New York, let alone lived there. The Mother is not a US citizen and save for her new husband, she has no ties to the USA and no independent support system of her own.²³ The Father says that C moved to New York for work only in August 2017 and his firm has eight offices around the world, including one in Singapore. It is not beyond C to move to Singapore if necessary.²⁴

The Father says that L shares an inextricably close relationship with him.²⁵ The Father believes the prospect of L losing the close relationship they have is a serious one, especially given the Mother’s history of being difficult, rather than facilitative, with remote access when L is with the Mother.²⁶ The Father is also worried that the Mother would return to substance abuse in New York.²⁷

Principles on Relocation

Since the Court of Appeal’s decision in Re C (an infant) [2003] 2 SLR (R) 502 (“Re C (an infant)”), the principles on relocation have been discussed in a number of published decisions. I find it instructive to refer to the seminal decision of Debbie Ong J in UYK v UYJ [2020] SGHCF 9 (“UYK v UYJ”) which examined the history of case law in this area and summarised the legal principles and considerations as follows (at [25]-[26]): 25 Case law has set out the established legal principles applicable to the parental relocation of children. In deciding whether to allow relocation, the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration (see the Court of Appeal decision in BNS v BNT [2015] 3 SLR 973 (“BNS”) at [3] and [19] and the High Court Family Division decision in TAA v TAB [2015] 2 SLR 879 (“TAA”) at [7]). As observed in BNS, while the child’s welfare is always the overriding consideration, relocation inevitably presents competing tensions between the interests of parents: if the court refuses the relocation application, the custodial parent is tied down to Singapore even if he or she no longer wishes to remain in Singapore, whereas if the court allows the relocation, the quantity and quality of contact that the child has with the left-behind parent may be drastically reduced (see BNS at [2]). 26 Examining the history of case law in this area, the decisions in BNS and TAA are particularly significant. Prior to TAA and the High Court decision of BNT v BNS [2014] 4 SLR 859, the majority of reported decisions in Singapore have allowed relocation. This trend was a result of the courts seemingly placing greater focus on whether the custodial parent had reasonable reasons for relocation, and possibly placing less weight on the loss of relationship between the child and the left-behind parent (see TAA at [9]; see also BNS at [25]). The reasonableness of the custodial parent’s wishes for relocation appeared to have the effect of being a dominant consideration. TAA and BNS emphasised, however, that the ultimate enquiry must be whether relocation is in the child’s welfare, and in considering this question, sufficient recognition must also be accorded to the loss of relationship a child may experience with the left-behind parent. This, however, should not be read to mean that the loss of relationship in itself has become the dominant or determinant consideration (see BNS at [26]).

At...