XLK v XLJ

The parents, both Chinese citizens with no long-term immigration status in Singapore, married in China in March 2016. Their son was born in January 2019 and lived in Hangzhou for almost the first five years of his life. On 7 August 2023 a Hangzhou district court granted the mother a divorce and ordered that the child be raised and educated by her; the father's appeal was dismissed on 23 November 2023. That same day the father took the child to Phuket, ostensibly for a holiday, and on 11 December 2023 brought him to Singapore and enrolled him in an international school. The child's paternal grandmother obtained a long-term visit pass tied to his student pass. The Chinese courts then made enforcement orders against the father, but the child stayed in Singapore.

The mother applied in the Family Court in FC/OSG 77/2024 for sole custody and care and control. The District Judge granted it and dismissed the father's application for joint custody, and a Family Division judge dismissed the father's appeal, saying the doctrine of comity had immense force and that the child's best interests lay with the mother. The father applied to the Appellate Division in Originating Application No 33 of 2025 for permission to appeal. A stay of execution was granted in the meantime; the mother said she had already returned to China with the child on 1 September 2025.

1. Whether the judge made a prima facie error of law by treating comity, rather than the child's welfare, as decisive
2. Whether comity may override or displace the welfare principle in cross-border custody disputes outside the Hague Convention
3. Whether the weight to be given to foreign custody orders raised a question of law of importance

Permission on a prima facie error requires an appeal likely to succeed and a risk of substantial injustice. The court found the judge had not decided on comity alone: his crucial point was that the child's best interests lay with his mother, based on the Chinese custody orders, the removal, the child being in Singapore only for schooling, and neither parent holding long-term passes. Those factors showed the family's lack of connection to Singapore and bore directly on the child's stability. The District Judge had worked through the factors in TSF v TSE [2018] 2 SLR 833, including the child's schooling and time in Singapore, and the judge agreed with those grounds. Not calling for a welfare report or interviewing the child was within the court's discretion.

The court did say the judge was wrong to state that comity alone could decide the appeal. China is not a party to the Hague Convention, so the welfare principle in s 3 of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1934 governs. A court may still order a swift return without a full merits inquiry where that serves the child's welfare, but foreign orders and a wrongful removal count because they affect the child's welfare, not because of comity. That error did not affect the outcome.

The first proposed question was answered in that discussion: comity does not override welfare in custody applications outside the International Child Abduction Act. The weight given to foreign orders is a fact-sensitive value judgment, not a question of law.

The Appellate Division dismissed the application for permission to appeal. It ordered the father to pay the mother costs of the stay application and the permission application, fixed at $12,000 (all-in), with the usual consequential orders.