In this unusual Court of Appeal decision Cheng Tze Tzuen (alias Zhong Zhixuan) v Dang Lan Anh [2026] SGCA 42, the Honourable Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon dissented from the majority (the Honourable Ang Cheng Hock JCA and Debbie Ong JAD) on a very peculiar legal issue:
whether a ‘marriage of convenience’, or a sham marriage, entered prior to 1 Oct 2016 is void.
The judges came to contrary conclusions based on their legal analysis of certain provisions, in particular, s 105 and 13 of the Women’s Charter (WC). Notably, s 11A of the WC 2020 was introduced to only apply to a marriage (of convenience) solemnised on or after 1 Oct 2016. So, the question that arises is whether the marriage in issue can nonetheless be declared void on some other ground under the WC.
Essentially, the CJ considered that s 13 expressly requires solemnisation on authority of a valid marriage licence. But a marriage of convenience is effectively a fraud on the Registrar of Marriages so there cannot be a valid marriage licence.
The majority however considered that s 13 is a regulatory provision governing formal validity. Whereas s 105 exhaustively sets out the grounds where a marriage is deemed void. If s 13 is used to invalidate a marriage licence based on a party making a false declaration about their private intentions, it would turn s 13 into an impermissible “side door” for introducing non-statutory substantive grounds of nullity.
This is of course a simplistic summary. But it’s just a reminder for us all that it’s in the nature of legal thinking and analysis that reasonable and brilliant minds may genuinely disagree.
It probably also takes us back to the law school classroom in legal philosophy – the tension between legal formalism (textual positivism) and natural law (substantive morality / purposive reasoning).
What is also interesting and unusual is that the Court invited the Attorney-General’s Chambers to inform the Court of the policy intent of the relevant Government ministry, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF). The AGC took a neutral position and submitted on the law as is while MSF clarified its policy intent regarding the relevant provisions. It is unclear how this sits with the usual approach that the Court would take in statutory interpretation as laid down in Tan Cheng Bock v Attorney-General [2017] SGCA 50.