YDS v YDT and another matter

Facts

The parents of A, a 22-year-old woman with cognitive impairment, Tourette's Syndrome and global intellectual limitation, divorced in China in 2021. The Chinese court gave the Father care and control and the Mother access. In 2023 the Father moved back to Singapore with A; the Mother says this was without her consent, and she claimed her contact with A was cut off in December 2023. The parties agree A lacks capacity to apply for protective orders herself.

Each parent then applied in the Family Court under Part 7 of the Women's Charter 1961 for protection orders for themselves and A against the other: the Mother in SSP 1871/2025 and the Father in SSP 1927/2025, which also sought domestic exclusion and stay-away orders. In an interlocutory application (INTAPP 142/2025), the Mother asked the court to appoint an expert under s 28 of the Family Justice Act 2014 to examine A, including on whether A wished to see her and whether A had been prevented from or influenced against contact. Alternatively, she asked that the parties and A be directed to counselling, with a stay meanwhile. The Mother has also applied in China for access to A.

Issues

1. Whether s 28 of the Family Justice Act 2014 applies to protection order proceedings under Part 7 of the Women's Charter.
2. Whether an expert should be appointed to examine and assess A in these proceedings.
3. Whether the court should advise counselling and stay the proceedings at this stage.

Holding

District Judge Tan Shin Yi held that s 28 does apply to Part 7 proceedings, but dismissed the application to appoint an expert to examine and assess A. The alternative prayers for counselling or a family support programme were also dismissed.

Reasoning

Applying the purposive approach, the judge read s 28 together with the Act's definition of family proceedings, which expressly includes civil or quasi-criminal proceedings under the Women's Charter. Reading s 28 to exclude quasi-criminal Part 7 proceedings would contradict its text. Extraneous material supported this: the provision was wider than the repealed matrimonial rule it replaced, the Committee for Family Justice had noted the value of experts in family violence cases involving children, and the procedural rules contemplate experts in quasi-criminal proceedings.

The proposed questions, however, were not relevant. Whether A wished to see the Mother, or had been kept from her, goes to custody or access, not to whether family violence had been or was likely to be committed and whether protection was needed. No access proceedings were before the Singapore courts, and seeking expert evidence here for use in the Chinese access case would be an abuse of process. Access orders are also outside Part 7.

Even if relevant, the assessment would add little. What the Mother really wanted was a way to take facts from A, not an expert examination. Given reports of A's very weak working memory and the Mother's own description of her as mentally a child, an expert could not usefully draw her views on complex issues of parental influence. The court and its family specialists could gather facts if needed, and the cost and delay of an assessment were not justified.

Under s 60E, counselling orders in Part 7 proceedings are made with or during a protection order, so ordering counselling before the applications were heard was premature.

From the judgment