The appeal was eventually set aside and costs of $2,600 were awarded to the Respondent Wife.
CASE SUMMARY
CLI v CLJ [2021] SGHC(A) 3
[Family Law – divorce, care and control of children of a marriage]
The Applicant was the Husband of the marriage whereas the Respondent was the Wife. Mr Low and Mr Tan argued for the Applicant to have a 5:2 split of the care and control arrangements of the eldest child, whereby one party would take care of the child for 5 weekdays and the other party would take care of the child for 2 weekdays. Despite our best efforts, the Court did not view this as an equal distribution pursuant to a shared care and control arrangement and ultimately ruled that the children’s interests are still the paramount consideration.
In arriving to its decision, the Court ruled that subjecting the young 8-year old child to a 5:2 day split would be too disruptive and that the acrimony between the parties would make it difficult to have the higher degree of cooperation needed for this proposed arrangement.