“Where in any proceedings before any court the custody or upbringing of an infant …, the court, in deciding that question, shall regard the welfare of the infant as the first and paramount consideration and save in so far as such welfare otherwise requires the father of an infant shall not be deemed to have any right superior to that of the mother in respect of such custody, administration or application nor shall the mother be deemed to have any claim superior to that of the father.”

“It means the general well-being of the child and all aspects of his upbringing, religious, moral as well as physical. His happiness, comfort and security also go to make up his well-being. A loving parent with a stable home is conducive to the attainment of such well-being. It is not to be measured in monetary terms.”

“[27] What would be in the interests of the child must necessarily depend on all the circumstances of the case. The court, where appropriate, will have regard to the factors the wife had mentioned, i.e. maintaining status quo, preservation of mother-child bond and that siblings should not be separated. Other factors will include the home environment and care arrangements made for the child, the conduct of the parties, and the wishes of the child. We must reiterate that this enumeration is not meant to be exhaustive. The court will have to carry out a balancing exercise to determine, as between the two parents, to whom custody should be given in the best interests of the child. A factor which may be determinant in one case may not necessarily be so in another. So the weight to be given to each factor may vary from case to case. No precise formulation is possible. This is not a scientific exercise but one of judgment.”

“[26] The idea of joint parental responsibility is deeply rooted in our family law jurisprudence. Section 46(1) of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 1997 Rev Ed) (‘the Charter’) exhorts both parents to make equal cooperative efforts to care and provide for their children. Article 18 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the child 1989, to which Singapore is a signatory, also endorses the view that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of their child. Similarly, jurisdictions like England and Australia have adopted approaches that impose on both parents the concept of life-long parental responsibility. With parliamentary intervention in these jurisdictions, the very concept of custody orders was abolished as it was acknowledged that it was in the interests of the child to have both parents involved in his life. There can be no doubt that the welfare of a child is best secured by letting him enjoy the love, care and support of both parents. The needs of a child do not change simply because his parents no longer live together. Thus in any custody proceedings, it is crucial that the courts recognise and promote joint parenting so that both parents can continue to have a direct involvement in the child’s life.”

“[38] … the exceptional circumstances where sole custody orders are made may be where one parent physically, sexually or emotionally abuses the child …. or where the relationship of parties is such that cooperation is impossible even after the avenues of mediation and counselling have been explored, and the lack of cooperation is harmful to the child.”

“[8] …. In my opinion, an order for shared care and control means that the child spends time living with each parent, who then becomes the child’s primary caregiver for the duration that the child lives with him (or her). The right to make the day-to-day decisions on the upbringing of the child therefore rests with the parent the child is presently living with. In the context of shared care and control, it becomes meaningless to speak of ‘access’. This is because the child effectively has two homes and two primary caregivers.

[9] The practical effect of an order of shared care and control means that the child will spend roughly equal amounts of time (including overnight) with each parent. An order of shared care and control can take different forms depending on the circumstances. This is illustrated by two High Court decisions where shared care and control was ordered: in AHJ v AHK [2010] SGHC 148 the child would spend Saturdays 8.00pm to Wednesday 11.30am with the mother, and the rest of the week with the father; in AKF v AKG [2010] SGHC 225 the same learned judge held that the children would spend alternate fortnights with each parent.”

“[17] The court should also be concerned with whether both parents can support a two-home arrangement with sufficient co-operation so that there is minimal conflict over issues that ordinarily arise from daily living. While each parent will separately be responsible for day-to-day decision-making for the child when the child is spending time with that parent, there still remains the potential for harmful conflict. For instance, if the child has left his or her homework at the mother’s residence, will the father be antagonistic to the mother and blame her for failing to attend to this, or will he deal with the matter calmly and supportively? What if this happens often? Thus, while it is true, as the Father submitted, that acrimony between parents does not automatically rule out the possibility of an order of shared care and control, it is a relevant factor in the overall analysis of whether such an order would be in the child’s welfare.

[18] Research also indicates that high, on-going parental conflict can make shared care and control “hard for children”, such that “the stress and burden outweighs the benefits for them” in some cases: Caring for Children after Parental Separation at p 8. Of note is an Australian study which found that in high conflict families, “[c]hildren’s experience of living in shared care over 3–4 years was associated with greater difficulties in attention, concentration and task completion by the fourth year of the study”. Similar conclusions were reached in another Australian study: see Jennifer McIntosh & Richard Chisholm, “Cautionary Notes on the Shared Care of Children in Conflicted Parental Separation” (2008) 14 Journal of Family Studies 37 at pp 41–42. As the authors in the latter article eloquently put it at pp 43–44:

… when children of any age make frequent transitions between warring parents who are unable to conceal their feelings in the presence of the child, children then begin to use considerable energy to ensure their own comfort and emotional safety in each environment, actively and constantly monitoring the ‘emotional weather’ they encounter in each parent’s home.”

“[46] … The overarching aspiration of the family justice system is to assist families to move forward positively. Therapeutic justice delivered through a problem-solving court process seeks to allow healing, restoration and recasting of a positive future... It is with these principles in mind, and the welfare of the Children as my utmost concern, that I approached the legal issues in these appeals.”