Ln v. Sccm

CACV 62/2013

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 62 OF 2013

(ON APPEAL FROM FCMP No. 210 OF 2012)

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BETWEEN

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Cheung JA :

1.This is the respondent’s appeal (pursuant to leave granted by two other judges of this Court) against the judgment of Deputy District Court Judge Carlson who refused his application to stay the present proceedings commenced by the applicant (‘the relocation application’) as being conducted in an inappropriate jurisdiction (‘the jurisdictional challenge’). The respondent contended Singapore rather than Hong Kong is the appropriate jurisdiction. The applicant invoked the relocation application under the Guardianship of Minors Ordinance (‘GMO’) (Cap. 13).

Background

2.The parties are Singapore citizens.  They were married in Singapore in September 1993 and two children (a daughter and a son) were born there in July 1999 and December 2000.  I shall refer to the applicant as the mother and the respondent, the father.  The children are now aged 13 and 12 respectively.  Marital discord occurred between the parties and in January 2005, the mother moved from Singapore to live in Hong Kong with the two children while the father remained in Singapore.  The mother is employed by a major international bank in Hong Kong while the father works in the family business in Singapore.

3.In July 2006, the mother petitioned for divorce in Hong Kong.  The father, likewise, petitioned for divorce in Singapore a few months later in October 2006.  The parties then reached terms on their divorce.  In February 2007 the mother withdrew her Hong Kong petition and the parties proceeded to obtain a divorce in Singapore under the father’s petition.  On 16 February 2007, the Subordinate Courts of Singapore granted an Interim Judgment on divorce.  For the purpose of this appeal, the relevant part of judgment which was made by consent, is as follows :

1)     The mother and father have joint custody of the two children with care and control to the mother and access to the father as follows :

(1)   Liberal including overnight access when the father visits Hong Kong.  The father will give the mother seven days’ notice of his intention to visit the children in Hong Kong.  The father will ensure that the children attend their present activities during his access time and the mother will endeavour not to arrange for any other extra-curricular activities during the time of the father’s visits to Hong Kong, not relating to the children’s school curriculum.

(2)   Half of all the school holidays to the father, to bring the children for holidays overseas or to Singapore.  The father shall pick up and return the children to the mother’s place of residence.  If the father is not picking up or sending the children back to the mother’s place of residence, and the father wishes to appoint a third party to do this, the father shall obtain the prior approval of the mother with regard to the person so appointed before the itinerary for the holidays is arranged by the father.  The father or the mother shall give the other a detailed itinerary of the travel plans with the children (other than to Singapore or Hong Kong) together with dates of departure and arrival, destinations, hotel, telephone numbers, at least 12 days before the children’s departure from the mother’s place of residence.

2)     The father shall pay maintenance of $6,000.00 per month for the two children by direct debit to the mother’s account with effect from 1^st January 2007 and thereafter on the 1^st day of each calendar month.  The father undertakes that he will pay for or contribute to the children’s educational expenses whether overseas or in international schools/schools in Singapore from age 13 onwards until the children finish their education, subject to his means.

4.The Interim Judgment was made final on 18 May 2007 (‘the 2007 Order’).

5.The mother used her divorce settlement to purchase a home in Hong Kong.  The parties have since remarried.  The father in 2010 and the mother in 2011.

6.Following the 2007 Order the parties had invoked the jurisdiction of the Singapore Court.  On 24 August 2010, the mother applied to increase the children’s maintenance.  On 24 January 2011, the father applied on the access arrangement.  On 15 February 2011, the Singapore Court refused the mother’s application and granted the father’s application.  Between February and June 2011 there were further applications and orders made in Singapore regarding access and reimbursement of the father’s wasted airfare expenses.

7.On 4 October 2012, the mother commenced the relocation application.  She sought the following relief :

1) The children of the family do submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of this Court;

2) The mother and the father be granted joint custody of the children with care and control to the mother and reasonable access to the father;

3) Upon the mother’s undertaking to this Court and to the father that she will return the children to the jurisdiction of Hong Kong upon being called to do so by this Court, the mother do have leave to temporarily remove the children to the United States of America (‘USA’) for education purpose;

4) The father do have make up access to the children for eight days, to be determined by the father, in the summer of 2013; and

5) There be an equal split of school holidays of the children between the mother and the father.

8.The purpose of the relocation application was for the mother to have permission to educate the children in the USA instead of Hong Kong.  The mother also applied at the same time for permission to take the daughter to visit schools in the USA.  On 15 October 2012, the Hong Kong Family Court granted the mother’s application for the daughter to travel to the USA to visit schools between 20 and 28 October 2012.

9.In response to the mother’s relocation application, the father applied, first, in Singapore on 16 October 2012 for orders that, among other things, the mother was not to change the children’s school and to relocate the children out of Hong Kong without his knowledge and consent and second, in Hong Kong on 29 October 2012, the present jurisdictional challenge.  The mother also applied on 6 November 2012 to stay the Singapore proceedings.  On 18 January 2013 the Singapore Court dismissed the parties’ applications.

10.Judge Carlson heard the jurisdictional challenge on 13 December 2012 and gave judgment on 17 December 2012 against the father.

11.While the mother initially applied to have both children educated in the USA, she later took out an application to have the younger son transferred from his then school in Hong Kong to another local school.  Both are well-established international schools in Hong Kong.  The son has Attention Deficit Hyper Activity symptoms which his then school did not have the facilities to address whereas the new school has.  The father opposed this application.  Judge Carlson heard this application on 21 January 2013 and gave judgment on 22 January 2013 granting the mother permission to change the son’s school.  The father does not appeal against this judgment.  The son will remain with the new school and the mother’s relocation application will be directed towards the daughter only.

12.After Judge Carlson had given his judgments, the mother amended her relocation application to seek sole custody of the children and confine the application to that of the daughter.  Recently, she further seeks to amend her application in respect of submission to the exclusive jurisdiction of this Court by deleting the word ‘exclusive’.

13.The Judge then gave case management directions on the relocation application on 15 April 2013.  On the father’s appeal, two other judges of this Court stayed the relocation application pending the resolution of this appeal (CACV 77/2013).  The hearing days of the relocation application are June 13, 14 and 18, 2013.

14.Without going into details, there have been further applications in Singapore which include the following : the father applied for an anti-suit injunction against the Hong Kong proceedings to be heard on 12 July 2013.  The mother’s appeal against the refusal of her stay application will also be heard on the same day.

Principles on jurisdictional challenge

1)  General principles

15.The leading authority on jurisdictional challenge by reason of inappropriate forum or forum non conveniens is The Spiliada [1987] 1 AC 460.  The principle is applicable to matrimonial proceedings : Louvet v. Louvet [1990] 1 HKLR 670, DGC v. SLC nee C (Stay of Proceedings: Forum non conveniens) [2008] HKFLR 160, RI v SSH [2010] 4 HKC 588, SA v SPH [2013] 2 HKC 130.  The principle is recently restated in SA v SPH at paragraph 12 as follows :

‘ 1. The single question to be decided is whether there is some other available forum, having competent jurisdiction, which is the appropriate forum for the trial of an action i.e. in which the action may be tried more suitably for the interests of all the parties and the ends of justice?

2.  In order to answer this question, the applicant for the stay has to establish that first, Hong Kong is not the natural or appropriate forum (appropriate in this context means the forum has the most real and substantial connection with the action) and second, there is another available forum which is clearly or distinctly more appropriate than Hong Kong.  Failure by the applicant to establish these two matters at this stage is fatal.

3.   If the applicant is able to establish both of these two matters, then the plaintiff in the Hong Kong proceedings has to show that he will be deprived of a legitimate personal or juridical advantage if the action is tried in a forum other than Hong Kong.

4.  If the plaintiff is able to establish this, the court will have to balance the advantages of the alternative forum with the disadvantages that the plaintiff may suffer.  Deprivation of one or more personal advantages will not necessarily be fatal to the applicant for the stay if he is able to establish to the court’s satisfaction that substantial justice will be done in the available appropriate forum.’

16.On the issue of appropriateness of the jurisdiction, this Court has stated in SA v. SPH that :

‘ 26. …… “Appropriateness” in this context means the forum which has the most real and substantial connection with the action. The connecting factors include not only factors affecting convenience or expense (such as availability of witnesses) but also other factors such as the law governing the relevant transaction and the places where the parties respectively reside or carry on business (Spiliada, p 478B, DGC, at para 12).’

17.Further as Ma CJ (then Recorder Ma) pointed out in Rambas Marketing Co LLC v Chow Kam Fai David [2001] 3 HKC 250 at 255 B to E, by reference to Spiliada, in conducting the inquiry, it was not enough to point to factors which connected a case to any particular jurisdiction.  The court was required to focus on the appropriateness of a forum from the point of view of the trial of the action. 

18.In the context of a matrimonial proceeding, this Court in RI v SSH offered guidelines on how the real and substantial connection issue is to be determined:

‘ 4. ….. Hence in order to see whether the proceeding has a real and substantial connection to Hong Kong, one must, first of all, ascertain whether at the time of its commencement the parties have substantially conducted their matrimonial life in Hong Kong.  Hong Kong being an international commercial city, the identification of this issue is most acute for expatriate families who live in Hong Kong.  The relevant considerations are, for example, whether the parties’ matrimonial home is here; what is their past pattern of life; do they regard Hong Kong as their home for the time being even if their life style may indicate that they may not take root in one place for too long a time.  Related to the issue are matters such as the place of work of the spouses : do they choose to work here; even if one of them has to ‘commute’ overseas to work, is Hong Kong still treated as their home base.  Likewise for the children of the family: are they studying here or spending their vacations here even if they are studying abroad.’

2) Pending foreign proceedings

19.Where proceedings have already commenced in a foreign jurisdiction, the earlier House of Lord’s judgment which predated Spiliada, namely, The Abidin Daver [1984] AC 398 provides guidelines on how this is to be approached.  Lord Diplock at 411-412 stated that :

‘ Where a suit about a particular subject matter between a plaintiff and a defendant is already pending in a foreign court which is a natural and appropriate forum for the resolution of the dispute between them, and the defendant in the foreign suit seeks to institute as plaintiff an action in England about the same matter to which the person who is plaintiff in the foreign suit is made defendant, then the additional inconvenience and expense which must result from allowing two sets of legal proceedings to be pursued concurrently in two different countries where the same facts will be in issue and the testimony of the same witnesses required, can only be justified if the would-be plaintiff can establish objectively by cogent evidence that there is some personal or judicial advantage that would be available to him only in the English action that is of such importance that it would cause injustice to him to deprive him of it.’

This is commonly described as the ‘lis alibi pendens’ (dispute elsewhere pending) principle.

20.It is clear that the situation where foreign proceedings have already commenced when the home proceedings are brought does not make it a distinct category of its own.  Rather the existence of the foreign proceedings is a relevant factor, although sometimes a very important factor in determining the issue of the appropriateness of the home jurisdiction.  Hence in de Dampierre v. de Dampierre [1988] 1 AC 92, Lord Goff of Chieveley at 108, after referring to the principles in Spiliada stated that :

‘ The same principle is applicable whether or not there are other relevant proceedings already pending in the alternative forum: see The Abidin Daver [l984] A.C. 398, 411, per Lord Diplock. However, the existence of such proceedings may, depending on the circumstances, be relevant to the inquiry. Sometimes they may be of no relevance at all, for example, if one party has commenced the proceedings for the purpose of demonstrating the existence of a competing jurisdiction, or the proceedings have not passed beyond the stage of the initiating process. But if, for example, genuine proceedings have been started and have not merely been started but have developed to the stage where they have had some impact upon the dispute between the parties, especially if such impact is likely to have a continuing effect, then this may be a relevant factor to be taken into account when considering whether the foreign jurisdiction provides the appropriate forum for the resolution of the dispute between the parties.’

21.This approach is an affirmation of what Lord Brandon of Oakbrook had said in The Abidin Daver at 423 :

‘ Similarly, the mere disadvantage of multiplicity of suits cannot of itself be decisive in tilting the scales; but multiplicity of suits involving serious consequences with regard to expense or other matters, may well do so.  In this connection it is right to point out that, if concurrent actions in respect of the same subject matter proceed together in two different countries, as seems likely if a stay is refused in the present case, one or other of two undesirable consequences may follow: first, there may be two conflicting judgments of the two courts concerned; or, secondly, there may be an ugly rush to get one action decided ahead of the other, in order to create a situation of res judicata or issue estoppel in the latter.’

22.See also Galaxy Special Maritime Enterprise v Prima Ceylon Ltd (MV Olympic Galaxy) [2006] 2 All ER (Comm) 902 at 911 where the English Court of Appeal disagreed with the submission that the principle in The Abidin Daver had been diluted by Spiliada :

‘ [26] Relying on Dicey and Morris on the Conflicts of Laws (13^th edn, 2000) vol 1, p 400 (para 12-030), Mr Flaux argued that the effect of Lord Diplock’s speech in The Abidin Daver had been subsequently diluted by Spiliada Maritime Corp v Cansulex Ltd, The Spiliada [1986] 3 All ER 843, [1987] AC 460. But as I read that passage any such dilution is confined to cases where foreign proceedings have not passed beyond the stage of being initiated and have been started merely for the sake of demonstrating that a competing jurisdiction exists. That is not the position here and while the existence of prior foreign proceedings is not, by itself, decisive, it deserves weight especially in a case such as the present where Prima’s claim is considerably larger than Galaxy’s appears to be.’

23.At this juncture, it is convenient to address the issue of multiplicity of proceedings that had been previously dealt with in the cases.  In Nan Tung Bank Ltd, Zhu Hai v Wangfoong Transportation Ltd [1999] 2 HKC 606 this Court differently constituted held at 610 that :

‘ It is agreed on all hands that after The Abidin Daver, [1984] 1 AC 398, a multiplicity of proceedings is not of itself a material factor in an application made on the ground of forum non conveniens but “there might be exceptional cases where the bringing of the second action ..... while the foreign action was proceeding, might cause an unusual hardship to a particular defendant”. At 409B, ibid, Lord Diplock observed:

As a general rule, the fact that to permit the (home) action to be pursued would result in concurrent actions on the same subject matter proceeding in two different jurisdictions could not be sufficient to justify depriving the plaintiff of the advantage to which he was entitled ... to choose it as a forum in which he preferred to litigate the matter.  (emphasis supplied).’

24.The quotation from Lord Diplock was his summary of the earlier judgment of Lord Brandon (then Brandon J) in The Tillie Lykes [1977] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 124 concerning the general rule on multiplicity of proceedings.  But as Lord Diplock’s summary immediately before the quote showed, there are exceptional cases where the bringing of the home action while the foreign action was proceeding might cause an unusual hardship to a particular defendant.  In so far as the quotation from Lord Diplock’s summary is repeated in DGC v. SLC nee C and RI v SSH, it is important to recognize that this Court in those cases (including Nan Tung) were dealing with the general situation and were not concerned with exceptional situations where unusual hardship might be caused to the defendant in the home proceedings.

Application of the principles to the present case

25.To the single question whether Singapore is the appropriate forum, one has to consider, first, whether, Hong Kong is not the appropriate and second, whether Singapore is clearly or distinctly more appropriate than Hong Kong.

The arguments

1)  The Father

26.The focus of the father (represented by Mr Victor Joffe and Mr Abraham Chan) in this appeal is that the parties, who are Singapore citizens, have already submitted to the jurisdiction of the Singapore Court, there are extant proceedings being conducted there and to allow the Hong Kong proceedings to continue will cause serious consequence as identified by The Abidin Daver.

2)  The Mother

27.Ms Audrey Eu SC and Ms Mairead Rattigan for the mother presented a persuasive argument focusing on the interest of the daughter in the relocation application. They argued that the mother and the children have already been living in Hong Kong for the past eight years.  They are permanent residents here.  The children have their schools here and the mother works here.  The mother has remarried and the new family unit is based in Hong Kong.  The fact that the mother had submitted to the Singapore jurisdiction in 2007 does not preclude the Hong Kong Court from assuming jurisdiction over the relocation application. They argued the jurisdiction where the children habitually reside is the best place to address the issues concerning the children.  They argued that the mother is not challenging the 2007 Order (the amendments to the relocation application in respect of submission to exclusive jurisdiction on Hong Kong and sole custody to the mother will be withdrawn by the mother) but rather to implement the terms of the Order because when the Order was made in 2007, by paragraph 3(2), it envisaged that the children may be eventually educated overseas.

My view

28.Mr Joffe did not challenge that the mother is entitled to commence the relocation application as of right but submitted that she had given no reason for choosing Hong Kong and he suggested that she chose to litigate here because she feared that she might lose in Singapore.  I would have thought that if the mother is entitled to proceed here as of right then it must be the end of the matter.  I am not prepared to speculate on the mother’s motive, which in any event is an irrelevant factor for this appeal.  I am sympathetic towards the mother in invoking the Hong Kong jurisdiction.  After all Hong Kong has been the home of the new family for the past eight years.  Her choice of Hong Kong is not so unusual that one may question her motive. 

29.In jurisdictional challenges which may involve children, their interest is a matter of high importance : Re V (Forum Conveniens) [2005] 1 FLR 718.  I am prepared to proceed on the basis that, in general, the jurisdiction where the children habitually reside should try the matter.  In the absence of express statutory provisions, this is a matter of good common sense rather than a recognized custom or convention.  After all, if the children are here, issues concerning their well being can be conveniently dealt with in terms of the Court’s local knowledge and experience on the way they are to be raised and educated, inquiry by social workers and experts, testimony from witnesses and the Court’s wish to hear the views of the children directly.  More importantly, this will ensure that there is no undue disruption of the children’s normal daily life when the matter is heard on home grounds.  Without going into a discussion on the legal meaning of habitual residence, it does appear that that the children have habitually been residing in Hong Kong.

30.It is of note that in the context of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Children Abduction 1980 which applies to both Hong Kong and Singapore, the underlining principle is for the abducted child to be returned to the jurisdiction of his habitual residence and his home Court to adjudicate on issues of his custody and access.

31.In this case, although the children were already living in Hong Kong before the 2007 Order was made, the regulation of the parties’ rights and obligations towards the children in term of joint custody and access is clearly determined by that Order.  The Singapore Court is vested with the authority to decide on issues concerning the children.  Even if the mother is entitled to invoke the Hong Kong jurisdiction under the GMO as of right, our Court cannot simply ignore this Order.  After all the parties had voluntarily submitted to the Singapore jurisdiction and the father is still residing there.  His reliance on the Singapore jurisdiction is clearly not opportunistic.  He has joint custody and he must have a say on important issues such as overseas education of the children.  This Court is told that the age of majority in Singapore is 21.  This means the Singapore Court will continue to exercise jurisdiction over the children for the next eight to nine years.  Once this is recognized, it is abundantly clear that all issues concerning the children should be decided by the Court of one jurisdiction rather than have the same (or different issues) being decided by the Courts in two different jurisdictions. 

32.Realistically the question of education of the children is only one of the numerous issues that may arise until they reached majority.  Unless the parties can agree, there will be continuous applications over the way they are to be raised.  Variation of custodial rights, the son’s military service in Singapore when he reaches 18 are some of the real and genuine issues that come to mind when one considers the inherent risks of conflicting decisions if Hong Kong is to continue to assume jurisdiction at the same time as Singapore which has refused the mother’s application to stay the Singapore proceedings.  The proceedings there were not engaged simply to demonstrate the existence of a competiting jurisdiction. They are also not in the stage of the initiating process.  On the contrary, in view of the nature of the 2007 Order, they must have a real and continuing impact on issues concerning the welfare of the children.

33.As often said, two perfectly reasonable courts may reach different views on the same issue.  Conflicting decisions on how the children are to be raised cannot be in the interest of the children.  I can understand Judge Carlson’s concern when he decided to assume jurisdiction over the children.  However, I would say respectfully that he erred on principle by not having properly assessed the serious consequence of conflicting decisions.  This is a clearly exceptional situation where the undesirability of multiplicity of proceedings should preclude Hong Kong from assuming jurisdiction.

34.The convenience of having the case heard in Hong Kong should also be considered in the context of Singapore having an advanced common law system like Hong Kong. It has specialist family judges.  It is only a short distance from Hong Kong and is on the same time zone.  Even if the children have to travel to Singapore which they had done in the past on access, the disruption should not be of a huge magnitude. 

35.The Court is told that the daughter is a highly intelligent girl and has set her mind to study in the USA with a view to eventually studying law there.  If the relocation issue is to be decided now in Singapore, it is not clear whether the Court there may hear the matter quickly enough so as to enable the daughter to attend school in the USA in the new term after the coming summer.  While it is clear that an offer has been made by the daughter’s proposed new school and a delay may prevent her from attending in the coming term, the delay will not be so disruptive as to affect her education prospects in the long term. 

36.In my view, the father has discharged the burden that Hong Kong is not the appropriate forum and Singapore is the appropriate one.  Exercising the discretion afresh, the Hong Kong proceeding should clearly be stayed.

37.Before I conclude, I have to say that before the parties rush to another round of litigation, the best way forward is for them to resolve, by way of mediation, on how the children’s future should be conducted.  Judging from the applications that had been undertaken so far, there clearly is hostility between the parties.  I urge them to let go of their own ego and animosity towards each other and decide what is in the best interest of the children.  I urge the parties to put themselves in the position of their young children and consider how their present and future well-being may be affected when two persons closest to them are conducting a bitter emotional warfare over them.  An agreement on the daughter’s future education is not insurmountable.  In the long term, this is the sort of decisions that should be left to be resolved by agreement rather than by litigation.

Conclusion

38.The appeal is accordingly allowed.  The judgment of Judge Carlson is set aside and the Hong Kong proceedings are stayed.  The hearing days of the relocation application are vacated.

Costs

39.The parties are to lodge written submissions within 14 days on the costs of the appeal and below and also in respect of reserved costs of CACV 77/2013.

Hon Kwan JA :

40.I have had the benefit of reading in draft the judgment of Cheung JA and respectfully agree this appeal should be allowed for the reasons given in his judgment.  I wish only to mention that in response to a question we raised during the hearing regarding the possibility of ‘mirror orders’ in another jurisdiction, the mother’s solicitors wrote to this court after the hearing informing us that her Singapore lawyers have advised it would be possible to obtain a mirror order from the court in Singapore.  Further, the mother is prepared to give an undertaking to apply for a mirror order in Singapore if the father’s appeal in Hong Kong on jurisdictional challenge is dismissed, and the Hong Kong Family Court has made an order in favour of the mother regarding the daughter’s education in the USA, and this undertaking is without prejudice to the mother’s stay application in Singapore and her position that Hong Kong is the correct jurisdiction to hear these matters.

41.It does not appear to me that the mechanism of a mirror order would work in a situation in which the parties are not prepared to put aside their differences on what they perceive as the best education plan for the daughter.  Whichever way the Hong Kong Family Court is to decide on the summons regarding the daughter’s education, the party whose position is rejected is not prepared to accept a mirror order in Singapore, so the matter would be litigated there again, with all the undesirable consequences mentioned in The Abidin Daver [1984] AC 398.

Hon Lam JA :

42.I respectfully agree with the judgment of Cheung JA and his conclusion that on the facts and circumstances of this case, Hong Kong is not the appropriate forum and the issue concerning the daughter’s overseas education has to be litigated in Singapore.  In so holding, we are also saying that Hong Kong is not the forum which has the most real and substantial connection with questions relating to the children despite their habitual residence in Hong Kong.  At first blush, this might sound surprising.  However, in view of The Abidin Daver and the reasons given by my Lord, I agree that this is the right conclusion in the present case.  I recognize that this might be disappointing for the mother and the daughter.  Like my Lord, I have some sympathy for the mother.  However, in the end, I am satisfied that to allow the matter to litigate in Hong Kong would not be in the best interest of the daughter given the real possibility of conflicting decisions in different jurisdictions which would be disastrous and unsettling for the child, particularly when we are dealing with the prospect of the daughter being educated in a third territory.

43.I stand by what I said in the course of the appeal that there is much room and need for judicial co-operation in cross-border matrimonial disputes, particularly in respect of matters pertaining to children.  Unfortunately, the parties have not explored with the Singapore Family Court the possibility of some kind of co-operation through a mechanism similar to mirror orders.  Though the mother has offered an undertaking after the end of the hearing, I do not think such undertaking goes far enough to obviate the possibility of conflicting decisions.  The mother did not undertake that she would not implement any Hong Kong decision until a mirror order is made by the Singaporean court.

44.I have read what Kwan JA said in her judgment as to the practical difficulty in that regard if the parties are at loggerheads with each other.  I would not under-estimate such difficulties.  However, in the interest of the children, there should be ways in which the courts of different jurisdictions should co-operate with each other instead of being dictated by the parties in cases like the present in order to achieve a sensible and prompt resolution of issues relating to the welfare of children.

45.Perhaps the ways in which judicial co-operation may be achieved in similar cases is an area where the Hague Conference on Private International Law might wish to consider.  I suggest a copy of this judgment be given to the Asia-Pacific Regional Office of the Hague Conference. 

Ms Audrey Eu SC and Ms Mairead Rattigan, instructed by Withers, for the Applicant

Mr Victor Joffe and Mr Abraham Chan, instructed by Stevenson Wong & Co., for the Respondent