Vxf v Vxe
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Woo Bih Li JAD,Hoo Sheau Peng J |
| Judgment Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Court | High Court |
| Docket Number | Originating Application No 3 of 2022 |
[2022] SGHC(A) 24
Woo Bih Li JAD and Hoo Sheau Peng J
Originating Application No 3 of 2022
Appellate Division of the High Court
Civil Procedure — Appeals — Leave — Applicant seeking leave to appeal against judge's decision to grant leave to relocate children — Whether fact that judgment affected substantive rights of party was reason to grant permission to appeal — Section 29A Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1969 (2020 Rev Ed) — Order 19 r 26 Rules of Court 2021
Held, dismissing the application:
(1) The three grounds upon which permission to appeal might be granted were (a) a prima facie error of law; (b) a question of general principle decided for the first time; or (c) a question of importance upon which further argument and a decision of a higher tribunal would be to the public advantage. The appropriate expression prior to 1 April 2022 was “leave” to appeal, which had since been changed to “permission” to appeal under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1969 (2020 Rev Ed) (s 29A) and the Rules of Court 2021 (O 19 r 26). W sought permission to appeal pursuant to the first and third grounds, and cited an additional ground that the Judgment affected the substantive rights of the parties (Aries Telecoms (M) Bhd v ViewQwest Pte Ltd[2017] 4 SLR 728 (“Aries Telecoms”) at [81]): at [10].
(2) The Judge did not err in not hearing SUM 1115 when she was prepared to hear the matters raised in SUM 703. SUM 703 concerned new evidence pertaining to an issue which could still be revisited in DCA 140, namely, the immigration status of W and the children. On the other hand, in SUM 1115, W sought to raise a different and new issue on relocating to Australia, which had never been raised previously. In any event, the Judge's decision would not have been an error in law: at [17].
(3) W argued that the Judgment “[exposed] a loophole” in that a parent seeking relocation could refuse to enrol the child in a school in Singapore or interfere with the other parent's employment in Singapore. However, the Judge thought that there was insufficient evidence that H had caused W to lose her employment and her EP. W could not turn a decision based on a lack of evidence into a question of law, let alone one of public importance: at [20].
(4) The fact that a judgment had affected the substantive rights of a party was not a reason per se to grant permission to appeal. The observation in Aries Telecoms had to be read in the context of the specific facts of that case. The decision did not stand for the proposition that where a substantive right was engaged and where permission to appeal would otherwise be necessary, it would follow that permission to appeal should be granted: at [21].
Aries Telecoms (M) Bhd v ViewQwest Pte Ltd [2017] 4 SLR 728 (distd)
Engine Holdings Asia Pte Ltd v JTrust Asia Pte Ltd [2022] 1 SLR 370 (folld)
IW v IX [2006] 1 SLR(R) 135; [2006] 1 SLR 135 (folld)
Lee Kuan Yew v Tang Liang Hong [1997] 2 SLR(R) 862; [1997] 3 SLR 489 (folld)
VXE v VXF [2021] SGFC 114 (refd)
The parties were married in 2009 and had two children aged ten and 12 years old at the time of the application. The husband (“H”) was an Indonesian citizen and the wife (“W”) was an Australian citizen, with the children holding dual citizenship, ie, Indonesia and Australia citizenship. The couple lived in Indonesia until early 2011, around which time they moved to Singapore. In April 2020, H filed for divorce.
At the time of the hearing of the ancillary matters before the district judge in the Family Justice Courts (the “DJ”), W and the children were in Singapore based on short term visit passes. W had resigned from her employment in February 2021. As a result, her employment pass (“EP”) was cancelled, which had resulted in the children's dependent passes (“DPs”) also being cancelled. Although the children had been studying in a school in Singapore on student passes, these were also cancelled in August 2021 due to W's residency status in Singapore. Thus, although W wanted to remain in Singapore with the children, this did not appear possible at the time. In October 2021, the DJ ordered that H would have care and control of the children and that the children were to relocate to Indonesia, as sought by H. W subsequently appealed against the decision of the DJ vide HCF/DCA 140/2021 (“DCA 140”).
In January 2022, the judge in the Family Division of the High Court (the “Judge”) delivered her part decision reversing the decision of the DJ on care and control as well as relocation. She ascribed significance to evidence that W's EP application which was submitted in October 2021 had been approved, and that W had an EP valid for two years until November 2023. W had also subsequently obtained DPs for the children based on her EP. Issues on access to the children were to be addressed subsequently.
In March 2022, H wrote to the court stating that W's EP and the children's DPs had been cancelled with effect from late February 2022, and that the children's short term visit passes would expire by end April 2022. The following day, H filed FC/SUM 703/2022 (“SUM 703”) in the Family Justice Courts seeking, inter alia, care and control of the children and leave to relocate with them to Indonesia, stating essentially these same matters in his affidavit in support. At the hearing of DCA 140 later that month, the Judge observed that H had filed SUM 703, and decided that it would be best if the matters raised in SUM 703 were heard under DCA 140. She gave directions for this to be done and for W to file an affidavit in reply.
In April 2022, two days before the next hearing of DCA 140, W filed FC/SUM 1115/2022 (“SUM 1115”) in the Family Justice Courts seeking, inter alia, leave to relocate with the children to Australia, in the event that she was unable to obtain a fresh EP within one month from the date of an order from...
To continue reading
Request your trial