Family Night Court ceases operations

SINGAPORE — The Family Night Court, which deals with cases such as first-time applications for maintenance or variation of existing maintenance orders, has ceased operations — following a decline in demand for its services in recent months.

For those unable to attend court in the day, mediation sessions can now be arranged in the late afternoon and alternative arrangements can also be made.

On April 30, the State Courts issued a circular announcing the cessation of the weekly night sessions at the Family Court, with effect from May 6.

Night court sessions, held every Tuesday evening, started in November 2011. The service was introduced to enable members of the public to attend court after work hours, instead of having to take leave or time off from work to attend court during the day.

A review of the Family Night Court showed that demand for such sessions in recent months has been “declining and very low”, a State Courts’ spokesperson told TODAY.

Only 228 cases were dealt with at the court last year, compared with 348 cases in 2012. Between January and April this year, 51 cases were heard.

The review also found that parties generally preferred to have their cases dealt with or adjourned to a day court, the spokesperson said. Key reasons include parents having to pick up their children from school or wanting to engage counsel who may be able to attend court sessions only in the day.

Most of those who use the night court are litigants-in-person — those who fight their own cases.

The spokesperson said mediation sessions for fresh applications for maintenance or variation of existing maintenance orders can be arranged for the late afternoon. Sufficient time will be factored in for such sessions to be completed before the end of a day court session, so that unresolved cases can be sent to the day court immediately after.

Other alternative arrangements may include allowing parties to exchange documents after hearing dates have been set, on a Saturday or during lunch breaks before the duty judge.

Lawyers whom TODAY spoke to said the cessation of night court sessions might inconvenience some.

To ease this, lawyer Rajan Chettiar suggested that more family service centres could provide video-link services. “This would mean that they do not need to travel to the Family Court, which will incur time and cost of travel and they would have to make arrangements for childcare,” he said.