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SINGAPORE - More measures to better deal with disputes within the family and between neighbours are being put in place within the Singapore justice system.
Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong announced on Friday that from May 15, there will be a specialised Children Care Court which will be more child-friendly and informal to deal with family dispute cases.
The separate court will make hearings less adversarial, and put the focus on the duties of parents rather than custody rights.
Chief Justice Chan noted that last year, 48 percent of divorce cases involved families with children, and nearly 4,500 of the children were below 18 years old.
The number of children requiring the Care and Protection Order as a result of abuse or neglect at home has also gone up, rising to 114 last year from 18 in 1996.
The latest effort to put the interest of the child first is part of a programme called CHILD, or "Children, Best Interests, Less Adversarial", which will begin in the second quarter of this year.
Under it, a CHILD Court judge, a deputy Registrar and family counsellor will follow a case till it ends and parties will proceed for hearing only after they have exhausted all attempts to reach a resolution.
Associate Professor Ann Wee, Former Head, NUS Social Work Department, said: "After all the child is not going to have another mother or another father (and) they have got to put up with the one they have got. It is so important that children grow up with some positive feeling about both their parents because however dreadful one parent is, there is always some good points. And children can be terribly damaged and their own future marriages can be damaged, if they don't see parenting in a positive way."
The CJ noted: "The efficient and child-focused management of the parental conflict will help lessen the pain and adverse effect of litigation on the child and reduce the psychological and financial burdens on the parties. The less confrontational the proceedings, the more likely it will be the eventual order made by the Judge, will be accepted, respected and complied with by all the parties."
Another trend which Singapore Courts are seeing is a rise in the number of cases which require Child Protection Orders. Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong said in most of these cases, the children are below 16 years of age. Also, they need care as a result of abuse or neglect at home.
So from 15 May, there will be a specialised Children Care Court to deal with these cases.
CJ Chan said the number of cases involving Child Protection Orders was up from 18 in 1996 to 114 in 2007. Among them, 33 per cent were abused by their mothers, while fathers were perpetrators in 18 per cent of the cases.
Such dysfunctional parents were not economically active or had various health, psychiatric, drug abuse and family problems. 22 per cent also had criminal records.
Outside of the family, a new court system - called the Neighbourhood Court - is being set up to deal with disputes between neighbours.
It starts running from this month and will adopt a problem-solving approach to deal with disputes, and will be supported by community programmes and services.
The Neighbourhood Court will be presided by legally-qualified Justices of the Peace who are appointed as Magistrates.
Chief Justice Chan said that between 2004 and 2007, there was a 56 per cent rise in complaints filed by individuals about disputes with other people. - CNA/sf
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