INTRODUCTION

Family is the building block of society. The institution of marriage as a legal construct is integral to enforcing the family structure and stipulating the obligations and duties of husbands and wives, parents and children. The greatest concern when a marriage falls apart is the potentially profound negative impact not only on parents but especially on children. Studies have shown that divorce is one of the most stressful life events that can confront an individual. Further, developmental outcomes for children are adversely affected when they are exposed to persistent parental conflict and violence. Such children may carry difficulties into adulthood that range from feelings of sadness and vulnerability, to more serious mental health issues, which translate into deeper issues for society as a whole.

It is imperative that society should take care of families, especially the vulnerable and the young, and the courts play an important role in this regard. The courts represent a fundamental institution of government, set up to perform the judicial function of helping parties resolve their disputes by upholding the rule of law. However, family disputes are unique. Unlike ordinary commercial disputes, underlying many family disputes are deeper emotional and psychological wounds, as well as fractured family ties and relationships that often have to endure long after the legal dispute has ended. More fundamentally, family disputes often involve vulnerable children who require special protection.

There has been growing awareness that courts cannot simply dispense ‘justice’ simpliciter when handling family disputes, without any regard to the deeper underlying issues. Since the mid-1990s, the Singapore courts have been drawing on the insights gleaned from related social science disciplines, to enhance the way family disputes are resolved and ‘justice’ dispensed, whilst upholding the law. Innovations and initiatives (e.g. court mediation and counselling) have been incrementally injected into the court system, to shift the courts away from a purely adversarial court model which has the potential to inflict even greater harm on parents and children, given its tendency to aggravate rather than ameliorate conflict.