SINGAPORE – After losing a child custody battle in China, a 38-year-old man took his son to Singapore and enrolled him in an international school here without the consent of his ex-wife.
The 33-year-old woman turned to the Singapore courts and succeeded in getting custody of the boy so that he could return to China with her.
The father’s appeal against this decision was dismissed by a High Court judge, who said this was “a case of outright child abduction”.
The man tried to appeal further but failed.
On Nov 5, the Appellate Division of the High Court dismissed the man’s application for permission to appeal against the lower court’s decision.
In a written judgment, the Appellate Division agreed that it was in the boy’s best interests for him to return to China with his mother.
The boy, who is now six years old, had spent most of his life in China before he was taken to Singapore in December 2023.
The two-judge panel said: “The child does not have any permanent roots in Singapore, and it is of grave concern to us that neither of his parents hold long-term immigration permits to remain in Singapore.”
The boy’s ability to re-adapt to life in China has not been called into question, and there was no reason to doubt that he would not receive satisfactory education in his home country, the court noted.
The court, comprising Justice Hri Kumar Nair and Justice Debbie Ong, also clarified that international comity – a principle of mutual recognition among states for each other’s judicial decisions – was not a relevant factor.
The judges contrasted the current case with applications under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international treaty that establishes a procedure for parents with custody rights seeking the return of their “abducted” children.
Singapore is a signatory to the treaty, but China is not.
