fc_judgments_version: 15

This data as json

_id _item _version _commit tags date court case-number title citation url counsel timestamp coram html _item_full_hash
15 14 1 1282 
[
    "Divorce",
    "Women\u2019s Charter",
    "Leave to file writ of divorce notwithstanding that 3 years have not passed"
]
 2024-02-02 Family Court Originating Summons 74/2023 WTY v WTZ [2024] SGFC 8 https://www.lawnet.sg:443/lawnet/web/lawnet/free-resources?p_p_id=freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet&p_p_lifecycle=1&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&_freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet_action=openContentPage&_freeresources_WAR_lawnet3baseportlet_docId=%2FJudgment%2F31012-SSP.xml 
[
    "Lee Chay Pin (Chambers Law LLP) for the Husband",
    "The Wife did not appear."
]
 2024-02-08T16:00:00Z[GMT] Sheik Mustafa bin Abu Hassan <root><head><title>WTY v WTZ</title></head><content><div class="contentsOfFile"> <h2 align="center" class="title"><span class="caseTitle"> WTY <em>v</em> WTZ </span><br><span class="Citation offhyperlink"><a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/31012-SSP.xml')">[2024] SGFC 8</a></span></h2><table id="info-table"><tbody><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Case Number</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">Originating Summons 74/2023</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Decision Date</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">02 February 2024</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Tribunal/Court</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body">Family Court</td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Coram</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> Sheik Mustafa bin Abu Hassan </td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Counsel Name(s)</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> Lee Chay Pin (Chambers Law LLP) for the Husband; The Wife did not appear. </td></tr><tr class="info-row"><td class="txt-label" style="padding: 4px 0px; white-space: nowrap" valign="top">Parties</td><td class="info-delim1" style="padding: 4px">:</td><td class="txt-body"> WTY — WTZ </td></tr></tbody></table> <p class="txt-body"><span style="font-style:italic">Divorce</span></p> <p class="txt-body"><span style="font-style:italic">Women’s Charter</span></p> <p class="txt-body"><span style="font-style:italic">Leave to file writ of divorce notwithstanding that 3 years have not passed</span></p> <p></p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td width="80%"><p class="Judg-Hearing-Date">02 February 2024</p></td><td><p class="Judg-Date-Reserved"></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p> <p class="Judg-Author"> District Judge Sheik Mustafa:</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Introduction</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_1"></a>1       In this case a Husband applied for liberty to file a writ file a writ of divorce notwithstanding that 3 years have not passed since his marriage was registered.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_2"></a>2       The Wife did not appear at the hearing before me. I heard the learned counsel for the Husband. I dismissed the application. The Husband filed an appeal. Here I give the reasons for my judgment.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Background</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_3"></a>3       This application was filed by the Husband in September 2023. The Husband and the Wife had married 6 months earlier, in March 2023.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_4"></a>4       They have no children from the marriage.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_5"></a>5       The Husband wished to have a divorce based on the unreasonable behaviour of the Wife. He listed the following facts in his proposed statement of particulars:</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_i"></a>(i)     Sometime after the marriage was registered, the Husband and Wife’s families had dinner together. The Husband went to the Wife’s home. The Wife went straight into her bedroom, packed her clothes and informed the Husband that she had to return to Malaysia to meet suppliers. Although it is not clear from the statement of particulars, this appeared to have happened on the wedding night itself.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_ii"></a>(ii)     The Husband claimed that since then the Wife went to live a separate life from him in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. She did not divulge her location to the Husband. She claimed that she needed to rent the apartment there in order to regularly meet her suppliers in her ornamental fish business, and she wanted to avoid the traffic jam at the Causeway. Whenever she came to Singapore she would nevertheless return to Johor on the same day.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_iii"></a>(iii)     Before the marriage, the Wife had told the Husband that she wanted to have 2 children, a boy would be named G***, and a girl to be named S***. She told the Husband that she wanted to tattoo the names G***, S***, and the Husband’s name on her arms. However, the Husband discovered that the Wife got a tattoo of G*** only, and he also discovered that the Wife’s name was tattooed on the arm of another man, also named G***, whom the Wife claimed G*** to be a friend.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_iv"></a>(iv)     A few days after the wedding, the Husband discovered that the Wife was in a relationship with G***.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_v"></a>(v)     The Husband’s sister-in-law was expecting a baby. The Wife obtained copies of the CT scan containing the baby. She sent it to G***’s wife. The Wife claimed that she was expecting a child by the Husband. The Wife told G***’s wife that the Husband was not ready to have a child, and that G*** was prepared to raise the child as his own.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_vi"></a>(vi)     The Husband confronted the Wife, and the latter claimed that it was all a misunderstanding. However, not long thereafter, the Husband discovered a post shared by G*** showing himself intimately with the Wife, titled “Happy Monthsary”.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_vii"></a>(vii)     The Wife admitted to committing adultery with G***.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_viii"></a>(viii)    The Husband also relied on the Wife’s other conduct. He alleged that she showed up at his aunt’s funeral but refused to partake in funerary rituals. She spent the whole duration talking to G*** or texting him.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_ix"></a>(ix)     The Wife requested the Husband to withdraw his name from their joint BTO application and allow G*** to take over instead.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_5-p2_x"></a>(x)     The Husband had to bear the pain of the Wife’s conduct and he was frequently questioned by his family members about the Wife’s whereabouts. He claimed that he was plagued and traumatised by thoughts of the Wife’s infidelity behind his back. He felt so stressed and sick that he vomited from the thought. His mental health was badly affected and he moved out of the Wife’s parents’ flat. He also claimed that the strain places him at risk of accident in his job as a ship operation executive.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_6"></a>6       Based on the above, the Husband’s counsel argued that the Wife had acted in extreme depravity, and so divorce proceedings ought to be allowed to be instituted within the 3 year bar.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Applicable law</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_7"></a>7       Section 94 of the Women’s Charter provides as follows:</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">94.—(1)    No writ for divorce is to be filed in the court unless at the date of the filing of the writ 3 years have passed since the date of the marriage.</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">(2)    The court may, upon application being made in accordance with the Family Justice Rules made under section 139, allow a writ to be filed before 3 years have passed on the ground that the case is one of exceptional hardship suffered by the plaintiff or of exceptional depravity on the part of the defendant…</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">(3)    In determining any application under this section for leave to file a writ before the expiration of 3 years from the date of the marriage, the court is to have regard to the interest of any child of the marriage and to the question whether there is reasonable probability of a reconciliation between the parties before the expiration of the said 3 years.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_8"></a>8       To succeed in his application, the Husband must show either :</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_8-p2_i"></a>(i)     that he has suffered exceptional hardship or</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_8-p2_ii"></a>(ii)     that the Wife committed exceptional depravity.</p> <p class="Judg-2"><a id="p1_8-p2_iii"></a>(iii)     He must also show that there is no reasonable probability of a reconciliation between him and the Wife before the expiration of the 3-year period.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_9"></a>9       In the case of <em>Tan Yan Ling Kyna v Chan Wei Zhong Terence</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/[2014] SGHC 0195.xml')">[2014] SGHC 195</a>, the High Court stated:</p> <p class="Judg-Quote-1">The statutory moratorium of three years is to impress upon married couples that marriage is not an event that one can sign in and out as they fancy. In the meantime, there are alternative remedies and relief in cases of abuse and they include applications for a personal protection order. The aggrieved party may also leave the other party, as this plaintiff has done. The moratorium is intended to hold out the hope of reconciliation – and who is to say that even in extreme cases of abuse, the abuser may not see the error of his or her ways and reconcile with the other?</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Findings</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_10"></a>10     In terms of evidence, the Husband files a singular piece of evidence: his proposed statement of claim and statement of particulars. He did not exhibit any documents to support or corroborate his allegations. I found it hard to accept that in this day and age, the Husband was not able to adduce any of the texts or the postings that he referred to. This left his case at the status of a bare allegation. Nevertheless, I was conscious that I could not at this stage decide whether the allegations are true. However, it did not mean that I was to accept the evidence uncritically.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_11"></a>11     With this in mind, I found that the Husband had not shown that his case, even if true, had attained the level of exceptional hardship. This does not deny that, prima facie, he may have sufficient grounds to obtain a divorce based on unreasonable behaviour of the Wife. However, section 94 expressly requires the hardship to be of an exceptional degree. I find that the Husband has failed to show this.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_12"></a>12     Similarly, I found that the Husband failed to show that the Wife committed exceptional depravity.</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_13"></a>13     I also found that the Husband failed to show that there was no reasonable probability of reconciliation between the Husband and the Wife. The marriage is less than a year old. The parties are in Singapore or Johor Bahru. This fact alone distinguished this case from the facts in <em>Ng Kee Shee v Fu Gaofei</em> <a class="pagecontent" href="javascript:viewPageContent('/Judgment/48932-M.xml')">[2005] SGHC 171</a>, where the High Court held that there was nothing left to reconcile in that case because the Wife had deserted the Husband and returned to China after repeatedly avowing never to return. I found that the facts of the present case were closer to those in of <em>Tan Yan Ling Kyna v Chan Wei Zhong Terence</em> instead, and that there remained, however residual or unlikely, a probability of reconciliation.</p> <p class="Judg-Heading-1">Conclusion</p> <p class="Judg-1"><a id="p1_14"></a>14     In view of the above, I could only conclude that the Husband did not show that he suffered from exceptional hardship, nor that the Wife had committed exceptional depravity, nor that there was no reasonable probability of reconciliation. I therefore dismissed the application.</p> </div></content></root> 567056529e91a947e623fa3fa2d30d5547890a36

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