Concluding my Term as Bar Council Family Law Committee Co-Chairperson wef 1.6.2020

This farewell post was written on 30.5.2020 to the FLC members. 

Dear members,

I am so grateful to have had the privilege of serving the Bar Council as the Chair and Co-Chair of the Family Law Committee for the last few years. I have tried to give my best in leading our committee in our various projects/ engagements with the judiciary/authorities with the aim of improving the practice of family law for our members and the public. However, due to new commitments, I will no longer be able to continue as the Co-Chair of the Family Law Committee beyond 1.6.2020.

I have spoken to our President and my Co-Chair, Dato' Tharuma, both of whom are aware and understanding of my present constraints. The FLC will be in the good hands of Dato' Tharuma. 

FLC's strength is our teamwork and warm camaraderie, enhanced by good nasi lemak/muruku/cookies/cakes! This is reason why we have been able to achieve some measure of change in the family law landscape. No doubt there is always so much more to be done. Rest assured, I will continue to support FLC and the Collaborative Law Movement behind the scenes.

My deep appreciation to my Co-Chairs, Deputy Co-Chairs, BC Officers, Rajeswari and Florence for their support and hard work. I thank our experienced and knowledgeable senior members of our committee for their mentoring and guidance. I am also grateful to so many of you who have volunteered selflessly - at a drop of an email, telephone call or WhatsApp message and taking on a myriad of tasks from attending brainstorming meetings, delivering talks/webinars, proof-reading grammar, drafting countless papers/research to attending meetings in Putrajaya. Your support has made this journey as Co-Chair less lonely and intimidating. 

Yesterday, I received a copy of Presiding Judge Justice Debbie Ong's Workplace Address dated 21.5.2020. This is attached. Singapore is moving from an adversarial system towards a system which is "problem solving" with a focus on delivering "Therapeutic Justice" under  a multi-disciplinary family system.  I've extracted and reproduced paragraphs 35 to 37 below which set out issues that I'm sure many of us commonly face:

A Sharpened Vision for Family Justice

35. In our sharpened vision for family justice, what needs to be done in preparation for the parties’ ‘new future’? Some parents think that they alone are enough for their child; they think they can take care of the child better than the other, and in fact they think that the child does not need the other parent. Other parents use their child as a tool for revenge. Here is a list of things NOT to do:

Do not send inflammatory letters to each other, and kill the chances of cooperation.

Do not allege the worst of the other spouse in affidavits in divorce proceedings, especially personally hurtful things, even going back 20 years or more.

Do not file many applications, only to increase costs and deplete savings, shrink the size of the matrimonial assets, and increase complexity unnecessarily.

Do not let the children suffer the conflict of loyalty and other sorts of stress, or burden them with your own issues. Do not ‘parentify’ the children and deprive them of a normal childhood.

Do not turn the children against the other parent; you may not need your ex-spouse anymore, but the children do.

36. Parties should not use the court proceedings to vent their frustrations. They should use therapeutic services to support them in respect of the emotional consequences of family breakdown. This list of DON’Ts will be part of our system. We will incorporate this list in considering the conduct we expect from parties as their legal responsibility.

37. What then should we do instead? We should focus on Therapeutic Justice in our sharpened vision for family justice. ...."

Family lawyering is indeed difficult and draining, but so very important as we have the opportunity to add positive value to the lives of the families we represent.

To end, let me leave you with a quote from former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, "I want to thank the profession. Your work can be dangerous, confronting and exhausting but the system would not function without you."

Wishing you a good weekend and keep Covid-19 safe!

Warmest regards,

Goh Siu Lin

Welcoming Speech by Chair at BC FLC Seminar "Avoiding the Quicksand of Divorce" 26.1.2019

A warm welcome to our distinguished guests

YA Dato’ Lee Swee Seng, High Court Judge,

Judge Foo Tuat Yien, former Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore and Former Principal District Judge, Family Court,

Our senior practitioners Mr. Balwant Singh Sidhu, Mr. Kan Weng Hin, Ms Foo Yet Ngo 

Ms Malathi Das, Dr. Diana Lea Baranovich and moderator, Ms Vicky Alahakone.

I thank you all for your generosity in taking your time to share your ideas and expertise.

We are here today because we are connected by a shared interest in, and commitment to family justice. Today’s seminar on “Avoiding the Quicksand of Divorce” is organised by the Bar Council’s FLC and is the first event to kick-off 2019.

Family law is about people, about emotions, about families who have been shattered by  emotional trauma affecting the most intimate areas of their lives and which may sometimes cross over into areas of family violence, mental health, child protection, and, sometimes, criminal law. We then struggle with the gendered dimensions of these laws, eg marital rape, child marriage.

Because family law is different, the family justice system and the practice of family law must also be different. Family justice should be about insulating children from the effects of divorce and helping parties navigate the legal terrain, moving towards a path of healing, restoration, and positive transformation.

The family lawyer’s role is so important. We are not just handling a case, what we do has an impact on the lives of these families and in turn, impacts our society and community.  

The effect of divorce especially acrimonious ones, are destabilizing and debilitating to children.

We are required to display sensitivity and understanding. Towards this goal, we need to  acquire and build on our competencies, in-depth knowledge of the various complex legal issues that may arise. For example, cross-border jurisdictional disputes, trans-national property transactions, surrogacy and for me, more difficult, family violence, estrangement and alienation of children, mental illness, substance addiction, just to name a few.

I've read that in England for example, the FDAC Family Drug & Alcohol Courts was established to address parental substance abuse through judicial monitoring and multi-disciplinary therapeutic intervention.

Family practitioners and the family justice professionals are exposed to a high degree of violence and harm every day. This adds to the stress of our work and an area which not many speak about and requires some support.

So, as practitioners we need have emotional resilience and a lot of common sense. The emotional rewards are there when you have helped a family to quickly resolve and heal or protect a child, the impact is beyond just that one case, but spreads out to the community.

My hope is for an ongoing transformation of the Malaysian family justice system, for  specialised family courts that are problem-solving, harnessing other support systems that children and parents need. In this regard, I look forward to learning more about the Singapore experience.

Finally, my sincere gratitude to the organising committee, Alex Tan, Emelia Van Burle, Debbie Wong, Rajes and Florence who have selflessly volunteered their time to make today a reality.

I wish you all a fruitful and intellectually stimulating day.

Goh Siu Lin
Chairperson
Bar Council Family Law Committee
2018/2019