On 2 May 2021, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) published a Consultation Paper entitled “How to Better Support Children and Divorcees, And Reduce Acrimony in Divorce”.

The Consultation Paper was compiled after engaging with more than 120 divorcee participants over a 3 month period in 2020, and sought the views of the general public to better understand how support may be provided to persons undergoing divorce and their children, in order to reduce acrimony in the divorce process.

Reducing acrimony in the divorce process

Under Singapore law, a party commencing divorce proceedings (known as the ‘Plaintiff’) must prove that the marriage has “irretrievably broken down”. Currently, this is demonstrated by the use of one of five facts:

  • Adultery
  • Unreasonable behavior
  • 2 years’ desertion
  • 3 years’ separation (with spousal consent obtained)
  • 4 years’ separation (without spousal consent obtained)
Of the above, separations are the only facts upon which a party may rely on for the breakdown of the marriage, without attributing blame or fault against the party whom the divorce is commenced (known as the “Defendant”).

The current law in Singapore had led to many participants feeling that they had to relive the pain of the marriage breaking down, when recounting their past experiences for the purpose of the divorce. To ease the stresses in connection with this, it was thus suggested that an ‘amicable divorce’ option be provided to parties, particularly when both parties had mutually consented and agreed that the marriage had irretrievably broken down.

Under the amicable divorce, both parties may jointly file for a divorce, without naming the parties as ‘Plaintiff’ and ‘Defendant’ respectively, which signifies an adversarial relationship.

The Consultation Paper further clarified that the aim of such an option would be to make the divorce less acrimonious, as opposed to making it ‘easier’ for parties to divorce. In this regard, the current legislative safeguards of a minimum length of marriage (3 years before divorce can be commenced), and the 3-month period before a divorce may be finalized, would remain. In addition, the five current facts would also remain available to parties even where they agree to divorce.

Support for Children

Suggestions were also raised on providing more support at the pre-divorce stage, to assist parents to better understand the impact of a divorce, such as by extending the attendance of the pre-divorce Mandatory Parenting Programme (MPP) not just to individuals who do not agree to the divorce and ancillary matters, but also to individuals who would already have agreed on these issues and are undergoing a simplified divorce process as well.

It was also suggested that divorce support programmes which are currently available to children, are underutilized. Further steps may be taken to raise awareness of these programmes, so as to provide adequate support to help children cope better with their parents’ divorce.

Support for Couples

Divorcees have further provided feedback that more marital counselling support such as online counselling and referrals for counselling services would be useful. In addition, it was also suggested that pre-divorce mediations may better assist parties to resolve ancillary issues before legal proceedings take place.

Feedback

The MSF will continue to gather feedback and views on the Consultation Paper until 3 June 2021, afterwhich it will consider whether to implement any of the suggestions provided.