Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
1-2019
Abstract
In orderto reduce acrimony and the adversarial quality of family litigation, theSingapore family justice framework went through an overhaul in 2014. Chiefamong the changes was the creation of the Family Justice Rules (“FJR”) uniqueto the newly constituted Family Justice Courts. The FJR are meant to reflect anew judicial philosophy for family law disputes, with a “judge-led” approachmandated by Rule 22 of the FJR. As part of the directions a court may give inthe exercise of this “judge-led” approach, Rule 22(3)(a) introduces a new,express power for the court to direct that parties attend mediation orcounselling. This paper seeks to examine the impact of the judge-led approach onmediation in the Family Justice Courts. How and when is the judge to exercisethe power under Rule 22(3)(a) to mandate mediation or counselling? What wouldthe relevant factors for consideration be? Is the judge the best person to makethe call? What would be the role of counsel in assisting the judge to make thisdecision? Drawing from academic literature and practices in otherjurisdictions, this paper makes recommendations to guide family judges inexercising their power under Rule 22(3)(a) and considers future areas forresearch.
Keywords
Mandatory mediation, Family mediation, Court-based mediation, Singapore Family Justice Courts
Discipline
Dispute Resolution and Arbitration
Research Areas
Dispute Resolution
Publication
Civil Justice Quarterly
Volume
38
First Page
97
Last Page
110
ISSN
0261-9261
Publisher
Sweet and Maxwell
Citation
CHUA, Eunice.
Mediation in the Singapore Family Justice Courts: Examining the mandatory mediation model under the judge-led approach. (2019). Civil Justice Quarterly. 38, 97-110.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/2892
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.