Singapore legislation
Section 46
Section 46
Family Justice Rules
(1)
There is a Family Justice Rules Committee consisting of —
the Chief Justice, who is the Chairperson of the Committee;
a Supreme Court Judge to be appointed by the Chief Justice for such period as the Chief Justice may specify in writing;
the Presiding Judge of the Family Justice Courts;
the registrar of the Family Justice Courts;
the Director of Legal Aid; and
2 practising advocates and solicitors to be appointed by the Chief Justice for such period as the Chief Justice may specify in writing.
(2)
The Family Justice Rules Committee may make Family Justice Rules regulating and prescribing the procedure (including the method of pleading) and the practice to be followed in the Family Division of the High Court, the Family Courts and the Youth Courts in all causes and matters whatsoever in or with respect to which those Courts respectively have for the time being jurisdiction (including the procedure and practice to be followed in the Registry of the Family Justice Courts) and any matters incidental to or relating to any such procedure or practice.
(3)
Without limiting subsection (2), Family Justice Rules may be made for the following purposes:
prescribing the manner in which, and the time within which, any application, which under this Act or any other written law is to be made to the Family Division of the High Court, a Family Court or a Youth Court, must be made;
prescribing what part of the business which may be transacted and of the jurisdiction and powers which may be exercised by a Judge, or a judge of a Family Court or Youth Court, in court or in chambers, may be transacted or exercised by the Registrar (including provisions for appeals against decisions of the Registrar);
regulating and prescribing the procedure to be followed on appeals from a Family Court or Youth Court to the General Division of the High Court, and the procedure in connection with the transfer of any proceedings from a Family Court to the General Division of the High Court or from the General Division of the High Court to a Family Court;
prescribing the scales of allowances, costs and fees to be taken, or paid to any party or witness, in any proceedings in the Family Division of the High Court, a Family Court or a Youth Court, and regulating any matters relating to the costs of proceedings in such Courts;
enabling proceedings —
to be commenced in a Family Court against the estate of a deceased person (whether by the appointment of a person to represent the estate or otherwise) where no grant of probate or letters of administration has been made;
purporting to have been commenced in a Family Court by or against a person to be treated, if he or she was dead at their commencement, as having been commenced by or against (as the case may be) his or her estate whether or not a grant of probate or letters of administration was made before their commencement; and
commenced or treated as commenced in a Family Court by or against the estate of a deceased person to be maintained (whether by substitution of parties, amendment or otherwise) by or against (as the case may be) a person appointed to represent the estate or, if a grant of probate or letters of administration is or has been made, by or against the personal representatives;
regulating the means by which particular facts may be proved, and the mode in which evidence thereof may be given, in any proceedings or on any application in connection with or at any stage of any proceedings;
regulating the joinder of parties and prescribing in what cases persons absent, but having an interest in a cause or matter, are bound by any order made therein, and in what cause or matter orders may be made for the representation of absent persons by one or more parties to a cause or matter;
providing for the appointment of a child representative to represent the interests of a child in any proceedings involving the child, or the custody and welfare of the child, and for the remuneration of the child representative;
regulating the rate of interest payable on all debts, including judgment debts, or on the sums found due on taking accounts between parties, or on sums found due and unpaid by receivers or other persons liable to account to the court, except that the rate of interest must not in any case exceed 8% per annum, unless it has been otherwise agreed between the parties;
prescribing in what cases money due under a judgment or order is to be paid into court;
providing for the enforcement of any order of the Family Division of the High Court (in the exercise of its original or appellate civil jurisdiction) or of the Family Court;
regulating the modes in which a writ of seizure and sale may be executed, and the manner in which seizure may be made of any property seizable thereunder, and the mode of sale by a bailiff or any other officer of the Family Justice Courts of any property so seized, and the manner in which the right and title of purchasers of the property at any sale by any officer of the Family Justice Courts may be secured to the purchasers;
regulating the discovery of a judgment debtor’s property in aid of the execution of any judgment or order;
the taking of evidence before an examiner on commission or by letters of request, and prescribing the circumstances in which evidence so taken may be read on the trial of an action;
prescribing in what cases and on what conditions a court may act upon the certificate of accountants, actuaries or other scientific persons; and
amending, altering or adding to the forms set out in, or in any subsidiary legislation made under, any Act mentioned in the definition of “family proceedings” in section 2(1).
(4)
The Family Justice Rules may, instead of providing for any matter, refer to any provision made or to be made for that matter by practice directions issued for the time being by the registrar of the Family Justice Courts.
(5)
At any meeting of the Family Justice Rules Committee, 5 members form a quorum and all questions must be decided by a majority of votes of the members present and voting.
(6)
No Family Justice Rules may be made without the consent of the Chief Justice.
(7)
All Family Justice Rules made under this section must be presented to Parliament as soon as possible after publication in the Gazette.
(8)
Prior to the enactment of Family Justice Rules on any matter which may be dealt with under those Rules, the Rules Committee constituted under section 80(3) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1969 may make Rules of Court for dealing with that matter.