Personal Protection Orders in Singapore
If you are in immediate danger, call the police on 999. This page is about the legal protection available afterwards, and how quickly something can be put in place.
If you are in immediate danger, call the police on 999. This page is about the legal process that follows, and it is not a substitute for help now.
What a personal protection order does
It restrains a family member from committing family violence against you. Where the situation warrants it, the court can also make related orders: one requiring the other person to leave a shared home, or one requiring them to attend counselling.
The order requiring someone to leave the home is, in practice, often the one that changes a person’s situation most immediately.
Where it is urgent
An expedited order can be sought where protection is needed quickly. It takes effect promptly and holds until the full application can be heard.
If this is where you are, say so plainly when you first make contact, in the first sentence. It changes how the matter is handled from that point.
Who can apply
Family members, defined broadly: spouses and former spouses, children, parents, and certain other relations. An application can also be made on behalf of a child, or on behalf of someone who cannot apply for themselves.
What helps the application
Anything that records what happened. Police reports, medical notes, messages, photographs, and above all dates.
Gathering this is upsetting and there is no way to make it otherwise. It is also what the application rests on, and a contemporaneous record is considerably more useful than a recollection assembled months later.
If an application has been made against you
Cross-applications are common and do not mean the case is hopeless. Take advice, and do not respond to the other party about it directly.
How we help
How we help
Act quickly where it is urgent
Where protection is needed now, an expedited order can be sought, which takes effect quickly and holds until the full application is heard. Say at the outset that this is where you are and it will be treated that way.
Help you assemble what the application rests on
Police reports, medical notes, messages, photographs, dates. It is distressing to gather and it is what the application is built on. We will tell you what helps and what does not.
Prepare and file the application
Including the related orders that are sometimes more useful than the protection order itself, such as one requiring the other person to leave a shared home.
Deal with the housing question
Whether you can stay, whether they can be required to leave, and what happens to the flat. This is frequently the most pressing practical problem and it is not always the one people raise first.
Represent you at the hearing
Including where the application is contested, and where cross-applications have been made, which is common and not a sign that the case is weak.
Handle it alongside a divorce
These matters often run together. Keeping them coherent, rather than having two sets of proceedings pulling in different directions, matters.
