Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon: Opening Address at the Official Opening of the Family Justice Courts Building

Official Opening of the Family Justice Courts Building

Opening Address

"The Family Justice Courts: Building on Firm Foundations"

Wednesday, 23 July 2025

The Honourable the Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon

Supreme Court of Singapore

Your Excellency Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, The President of the Republic of Singapore

Mr Masagos Zulkifli, The Honourable Minister for Social and Family Development

Mr Edwin Tong SC, The Honourable Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs

Mr Murali Pillai SC, The Honourable Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Ministry of Transport

Mr Lucien Wong SC, Attorney-General

Justice Teh Hwee Hwee, Presiding Judge of the Family Justice Courts

My fellow Judges

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

1. A very good morning. Thank you very much all for being with us today to witness the official opening of the “Octagon” as the home of the Family Justice Courts ("FJC"). I am particularly grateful to Your Excellency President Tharman for gracing this occasion and for your long-standing support for the work and mission of the Judiciary.

2. For half a century, the “Octagon” has stood as an iconic landmark in our judicial landscape.¹ As the home of the former Subordinate Courts and State Courts, housing the engine room that has powered much of the Judiciary’s work, it has literally been the doorway through which countless individuals have gained access to our justice system.² Today, we gather to celebrate the refurbishment, repurposing and reopening of this historic building, and with it to launch the next phase of the FJC journey. Allow me to share three reflections this morning on the significance of this milestone with particular emphasis on our work in family justice.

I. The FJC – A Unified Court

3. I begin in 2014, when the FJC was established as a specialist court to deal with all family-related disputes. This was a watershed moment that marked a fundamental shift in our approach towards family justice. It came with the growing awareness that the traditional adversarial paradigm of civil justice was proving to be ill-suited to resolving family disputes in modern society.³ As I observed then, the time had come for us to recognise that family justice is distinct from other parts of the justice landscape, and that we should instead understand the role of the family judge at least in some respects as more like that of a doctor, approaching each case “with a focus on diagnosing the problem, having the appropriate bedside manner to engender trust and convey empathy, and the wisdom to choose the right course of treatment so as to bring a measure of healing”.⁴

4. The consolidation of all family-related cases within the FJC’s jurisdiction was a critical step that enabled us to view and to address family justice issues holistically and systematically, under the expert care of specialist family judges and allied professionals.⁵ Today’s physical consolidation of the FJC’s services under one roof is a natural progression of this vision. It will augment the FJC’s capacity to deliver comprehensive services in an accessible manner.

II. Therapeutic Justice – The Next Frontier

5. The FJC’s distinct ethos and identity were further crystallised in 2020, when Therapeutic Justice (or “TJ”) was adopted as its overarching philosophy. This brings me to my second observation, on the continuing evolution of the TJ framework.

6. The TJ-oriented approach adopts a problem-solving, interest-based approach to resolving disputes. The breakdown of a family is almost always rooted in multiple causes, and even if the differences cannot be completely reconciled, the parties remain tied in many ways. Hence, the FJC focuses on an approach that seeks to address the parties’ underlying issues holistically, to restore their relationships to a state that enables them to continue to address those persistent ties, which will give rise to issues such as maintenance and the needs of children, and to shift their focus to the creation of a mutually acceptable future.⁶ This philosophy is anchored in two key insights. The first is that the law is a powerful social force capable of producing both therapeutic and anti-therapeutic consequences, and that we must strive to maximise its therapeutic potential for the sake of our families. The second relates to the steady rise in the number of parties, especially in family justice, who are self-represented.⁷ These two considerations compel us to actively re-design our court systems and spaces to make justice truly accessible to all.

7. It is in this light that the FJC formally adopted TJ as its overarching philosophy in 2020 and launched the “TJ Model” in 2024.⁸ The TJ Model translates TJ from a concept into an actionable framework that affords practical guidance to judges, lawyers, counsellors, social workers and other actors in our justice system. That TJ has fundamentally transformed the family justice landscape is perhaps best captured by the growing interest in the FJC’s TJ processes. Domestically, the Family Therapeutic Justice Certification Programme, which equips members of the family bar with the skills to practise effectively as TJ-oriented practitioners, has completed four successful runs.⁹ At the regional level, the Council of ASEAN¹⁰ Chief Justices has agreed to explore convening the 4th ASEAN Family Judges Forum on Therapeutic Justice.¹¹ 

8. But there is still more that can be done. We have focused thus far on the operationalisation of TJ in matrimonial proceedings, but we will now direct our attention to another crucial group of court users – children and young persons. We are confident that TJ principles can be a source of inspiration to bolster our proceedings in the Youth Courts, which comprise:

(a) cases concerning the treatment and rehabilitation of youth offenders;

(b) applications for the care and/or protection of children or young persons; and

(c) applications for family guidance orders in respect of children or young persons.

9. The Youth Courts are the next frontier in our ongoing efforts to extend the application of TJ in the FJC, and I will elaborate on this with three brief points. First, at the heart of every Youth Court proceeding is a child or young person who needs guidance, protection or rehabilitation. This essential understanding is already embedded in our approach to youth offenders, where it is well-established that the criminal law does not apply in quite the same way. For one thing, we do not use words such as “conviction” and “sentence”,¹² and the presumptive focus of the Youth Courts is on rehabilitation. The law in this area reflects our belief, as a society, that children and young persons deserve the opportunity to turn their lives around, and that this justifies the creation of a distinct system for dealing with young individuals who may have gone astray, save in cases involving very serious offences.

10.  We therefore believe there is considerable scope for TJ principles to complement existing practices in the Youth Courts by encouraging the children and young persons who come before us to take responsibility for their actions and commit to restorative steps that will pave the way towards a positive and meaningful future. In this paradigm, underlying issues that shape that young individual's behaviour and circumstances should be identified and addressed together with the legal issues before the Court wherever this is possible. Children and young persons deserve nothing less than a supportive system that keeps them safe, addresses their underlying needs and sets them on a path towards a better future – whether the presenting issue is criminal conduct, family conflict or parental neglect.

11. My second point concerns some of the ways in which we will calibrate the Youth Courts’ systems to incorporate the FJC’s therapeutic approach. The Youth Courts will explore the use of a Visionary Map which is intended to guide youth offenders through a process of structured reflection, encouraging them to examine their own past choices and to articulate their own meaningful hopes for their future. These reflections may then culminate in a Promise for Change – a personally crafted commitment that translates their insights from the Visionary Map into a concrete, co-created action plan for change, allowing youth offenders to take responsibility and commit to positive transformation and rehabilitation. These reflective and forward-looking tools will over time and with the benefit of experience be refined, so that we can ensure that they are responsive to the needs of our troubled youth and strengthen their rehabilitative impact. 

12. The FJC will also deploy multi-disciplinary teams to deal with selected cases in the Youth Courts. This extends the practice already adopted in the Family Courts of assigning certain cases to a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team comprising a mediation judge, a hearing judge and a Court Family Specialist.¹³ The team assigned to each case is generally entrusted with managing the case and any related matters until their conclusion. Where reasonably practicable, a similar approach will be applied to families with multiple proceedings in the Youth Courts, with a judicial officer and a Court Family Specialist working together on all applications in the Youth Courts that involve that family. The consistency and contextuality that this promotes will help build trust, deepen understanding and promote the delivery of holistic and targeted support over time. 

13. Where a family has concurrent proceedings in both the Family Courts and the Youth Courts, the multi-disciplinary teams from both courts will look to work together.¹⁴ Such a collaborative approach will promote shared understanding between teams, facilitate exchanges on any safety or risk concerns, and encourage timely referrals to therapeutic support services, all while ensuring that the confidentiality of information is not compromised. The result should be a more coordinated response to the distressed family’s needs.

14. My third point on TJ in the Youth Courts is that it takes a village to raise a child. The Youth Courts adopt a “whole of community” approach, where the court, parents, educators, social workers and community partners will move together to support every child and young person. Where children, for some reason, have not been engaged with the education system for an extended period of time or have been suspended or expelled from school, active steps should be taken to reintegrate them at the earliest opportunity. Going forward, the FJC will explore targeted ways to identify and support such students, and work with all stakeholders to facilitate their return to their educational journeys as quickly as possible. 

15. We believe that a court devoted to families should measure its impact not just by the number of concluded cases or convictions, but by something far more meaningful – it succeeds when it loses repeat users. In the future that we are striving to create, every child or young person who enters our justice system should leave with the tools that will ensure that they need never come back. Our aim is not to be a revolving door, but a one-time intervention that resets a young life on a new and better path.

III. Access to Justice

16. My final observation this morning is that while much vital work takes place within the FJC’s premises – and indeed today’s occasion is significant for this very reason – the true reach and impact of the FJC’s work extends beyond the physical confines of the courthouse. 

17. The “Octagon” today opens not only with redesigned physical spaces but also a complement of future-oriented virtual corridors. An example of this is the FJC’s suite of electronic filing and case management systems. Since its introduction in 2017,¹⁵ the Integrated Family Application Management System (or “iFAMS”) has evolved into a comprehensive one-step portal that enables self-represented parties to commence and manage various types of cases online, from maintenance and protection cases to simplified deputyship applications.¹⁶ This has played a pivotal role in enhancing access to justice and in enabling the FJC to manage its caseload – in 2024, around 5,300 maintenance and protection cases were managed on iFAMS, accounting for nearly 19% of the FJC’s caseload. The Divorce eService and Probate eService, launched in 2021 and 2023 respectively, further broadened the range of applications that self-represented parties are able to file online. 

18. The FJC is presently designing an Online Dispute Resolution platform that has the potential to transform existing court processes and to encourage the expedient resolution of maintenance applications. Its distinctive feature will be an algorithm that can suggest reasonable maintenance figures for the child or the wife concerned. The platform exemplifies a core principle of TJ – which is that families should be empowered to find their own solutions and resolve their disputes with minimal intervention by external adjudicators but with as much access to relevant information as is possible. 

19. Beyond its digital transformation, the FJC continues to develop innovative tools for the delivery of therapeutic outcomes. Today we launch the TJ Journal, a resource designed to support divorcing couples in their journey beyond the courtroom. All divorcing couples with minor children who come before the courts will receive this journal, which features information about TJ and questions relevant to each stage of the divorce proceedings. These guiding questions have been crafted to prompt parents to pause, to reflect on their emotions, to focus on their children’s needs, and to plan for their future. The TJ Journal also contains resources that encourage and enable parents to seek support for themselves and their children when this is needed. 

20. The FJC has also pioneered community outreach efforts with our partners through informal seminars that raise awareness of legal rights and available resources. This project has since been rebranded as the Judiciary Awareness @ Heartlands initiative and it now includes all three courts, with a recent session addressing issues of family violence and harassment. Indeed, it is in this very spirit – that justice must be accessible, visible and attuned to everyday realities – that we have organised this afternoon's Open House at the “Octagon”.

IV. Conclusion

21. Let me conclude by acknowledging that none of these advancements would have been possible without the shared vision and outstanding support of all our partners. I would like to extend my gratitude to the President, the Government, especially the Ministries of Law and of Social and Family Development, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Bar and the many counsellors, psychologists and volunteers who serve tirelessly within our justice ecosystem. You are the co-authors of hope, restoration and rehabilitation in our shared mission of helping families to hope again.

22. Finally, let me express my utmost appreciation to the entire team at the FJC. They are today's unsung heroes. The judges, administrators and staff of the FJC led by the Presiding Judge have soldiered on marvellously through the years, while having to cope with the disruptions and difficulties of working from various temporary locations. And they worked so very hard to see to the physical move to their new premises last year. They have also conceptualised and overseen all of the arrangements for today’s official opening, and all of this has been done while discharging their heavy and demanding workload with the deepest commitment. To them, I express my heartfelt gratitude!

23. Thank you all very much.