Our international family team has grown with the creation on 6
April of our Formal Law Alliance with KhattarWong, operating as
'Withers KhattarWong' and providing skilled local family
law advice in Singapore, alongside our teams in Hong Kong and
London.
This international reach means that we are uniquely well-placed to
consider how each jurisdiction treats the central issues in family
law matters.
Suzanne Kingston,
Natalie O'Shea,
Stacey Choong and
Philippa Hewitt at Withers and See Chern Yang at Premier Law
LLC carried out a thorough comparison, in which England & Wales
and Hong Kong's systems can be seen to correspond closely in
many more areas than Singapore's, and this is perhaps not
surprising, given their lengthier historical relations.
The main distinctions between the jurisdictions feature in relation
to civil partnerships, same sex marriages and civil unions. These
are only recognised in England & Wales at present, and this
difference presumably follows local cultural trends. Generally
speaking, concepts of applicable law on divorce are similar across
all three jurisdictions, which will consider non-domestic laws as
part of the circumstances of a case.
England & Wales and Hong Kong require at least one year of
marriage to have passed before a divorce petition can be issued,
whilst in Singapore a period of three years separation needs to
have passed before a divorce can be issued without leave. Financial
provision on divorce is pretty similar across the three
jurisdictions, although in Singapore certain assets are excluded
from consideration as matrimonial assets, such as gifts or
inheritances.
England & Wales leads the way in attaching more weight to
pre-nups and post-nups. Hong Kong has approved the judgment in
Radmacher and Granatino and is awaiting the Law Commission
report this year so as to consider what further modifications to
make in its system. Singapore, meanwhile, considers pre-nups under
common law contractual principles, but will generally enforce
post-nups if properly entered into.
Notwithstanding the proposals put forward in the Law Reform
Commission in 2005, no big changes have been made to children law
in Hong Kong and reference is still made to concepts of joint and
sole custody and access – a far cry from the Children Act
1989 in England. All three jurisdictions currently have no statutes
governing the division of property for unmarried couples, but are
empowered to make maintenance provisions for the benefit of
children of unmarried couples.
One of the biggest changes in all of the jurisdictions is in
relation to how they deal with cases. It is not now just about
litigation but other forms of dispute resolution too. In all three
jurisdictions there has been a substantial increase in mediation
where a neutral independent facilitator tries to broker an
agreement between the couple. In England the family law arbitration
scheme introduced by IFLA (http://ifla.org.uk/) was launched in April 2012
and has been endorsed by the judiciary with more and more cases
going down this route. In Hong Kong a system of adjudication which
is very similar to arbitration was established in late 2014, so it
will be interesting to see what happens in the world renowned
arbitration hub of Singapore. We are all watching and
waiting....
A detailed two-part examination of these jurisdictions'
approaches to family law, originally published in Legalease's
Family Law Journal, can be viewed here and here.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.