To negotiate, mediate or litigate? Examining the durability of divorce outcomes in the Singapore family courts

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Dorcas Quek Anderson,Eunice Chua,Yilin Ning
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12661

ARTICLE

To negotiate, mediate or litigate? Examining the

durability of divorce outcomes in the Singapore

family courts

Dorcas Quek Anderson

1

| Eunice Chua

2,3

| Yilin Ning

4

1

Assistant Professor of Law; Yong Pung How

School of Law, Singapore Management

University, Singapore, Singapore

2

Chief Executive Officer, Financial Industry

Disputes Resolution Centre, Singapore,

Singapore

3

Research Fellow, Singapore International

Dispute Resolution Academy, Yong Pung

How School of Law, Singapore Management

University, Singapore, Singapore

4

Research Fellow, Duke-NUS Medical School,

Singapore, Singapore

Correspondence

Dorcas Quek Anderson, Assistant Professor

of Law; Yong Pung How School of Law,

Singapore Management University, Singapore,

Singapore.

Email: dorcasquek@smu.edu.sg

Funding information

This research was funded by the Singapore

Judicial College. The authors alone are solely

responsible for the research and analysis. The

authors wish to acknowledge the excellent

assistance of Victoria Ang, Allen Chong, Koh

Zhi Jia, John Loh, Robbie Tan, and Keith Toh.

Abstract

For many years, the courtshave been grappling with the par-

adox of marriages—the most intimate of relationships—being

dissolved in the courts that representa public and adversarial

setting. Despite the growth of divorce interventions, the

perennial struggle remains in many courts on how to reduce

the intense acrimony of divorce litigation. The question

remains on the scope of “mainstream”interventions to be

offered by the courts to divorce litigants. The current study

therefore explores the use of court-connected negotiation,

mediation, and litigation in the Singapore Family Justice

Courts. It uses a statistical method of survival analysis to pro-

duce insights on re-litigation trends over time and to predict

the future risk of re-litigation. Mediated divorces were found

to have consistently higher durability than litigated cases and

negotiated settlements. Negotiated divorce outcomes had

the worst durability when the survival analysis was done in

relation to re-litigation caused by extraneous factors. These

findings strongly suggest that mediation should be a highly

recommended mode of dispute resolution for divorcing

parties, especially when there are children to the marriage,

and that there are benefits of having a neutral third party to

help the parties reach a sustainable settlement.

KEYWORDS

divorce mediation, divorce re-litigation, durability, negotiation,

survival analysis

DOI: 10.1111/fcre.12661

© 2022 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.

434 Family Court Rev. 2022;60:434–457.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fcre

Key Points for the Family Court Community

•This study showed that mediated divorce cases were

more durable than litigated and negotiated cases

amongst cases with children. The higher durability for

mediated cases appeared to take effect in the long-term,

after 1 year has lapsed since the divorce order.

•The higher durability for mediated cases with children

appeared to validate the courts' policy of adopting a multi-

disciplinary approach involving mediation being conducted

by judges, volunteer mediators and social science experts.

•The higher durability of mediated cases with children

was seen when examining variations linked to the

parties' lack of cooperation as well as variations linked to

other reasons. This suggests that the mediation process

not only has a favourable impact on the parties' post-

divorce ability to manage disputes, but also contributes

to developing sustainable settlements.

•The presence of legal advice did not make a difference

to the above findings, suggesting that the presence of a

neutral third party—a judge or a mediator—could result in

more sustainable divorce outcomes.

•Negotiated divorce outcomes were the least durable

when durability analysis was done in relation to varia-

tions sought due to extraneous circumstances such as

errors and implementation issues. This findings suggests

that negotiated settlements are less sustainable than liti-

gated and mediated divorce outcomes.

•While amicably negotiated settlements are to be encour-

aged, it is critical that the settlements are arrived through

the parties' informed consent and with understanding of

the salient issues.

INTRODUCTION

For many years, the courts have been grappling with the paradox of marriages—the most intimate of relationships—

being dissolved in the courts that represent a public and adversarial setting. Divorce is still very much associated with

the legal landscape; negotiation on post-divorce arrangements takes place in the shadow of the law and the role of

legal practitioners remains prominent in the dissolution of marriages (Mnookin & Kornhauser, 1979). However, the

detrimental impact of high-conflict divorces on the family and children's development has been widely

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