ROMIANAH-BT-KUSANDI-WARSO v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 186/2025

[2025] HKCFI 1787

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 186 OF 2025

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review
NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;            or
	consideration of the documents and oral submissions by the Applicant in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 39-year-old national of Indonesia who last arrived in Hong Kong on 24 May 2019 with permission to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract on 28 February 2021 or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her employment was prematurely terminated on 7 January 2021, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police some 3 years later on 4 January 2024. After she was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Indonesia she would be harmed or killed by her former husband over their monetary dispute and/or by her father’s creditor over her father’s debts.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Telukbetung, Bandar Lampung, Sumatera Selatan, Indonesia. After leaving school she went to work as a domestic servant in Saudi Arabia and Singapore before returning to Indonesia in 2013 to work in a factory in her home district.

3.  In 2017 she was informed by her father that he had borrowed a loan from his creditor for her sister’s medical expenses, and that he required her to help him to repay his loan by monthly instalments, and hence the Applicant in May 2017 came to Hong Kong to work as a foreign domestic helper and to remit money to her father every month to assist him in his loan repayment by instalments.

4.  In April 2019 the Applicant returned to Indonesia to marry her husband before returning to Hong Kong to continue with her employment, during which her husband demanded her to give him the bulk of her income for his use, but when the Applicant refused as she needed her income to help her father to repay his loan, it led to serious arguments between the 2 of them that one day in January 2021 her husband called her to tell her that he had already divorced her and that he would kill her when she returned to Indonesia due to their monetary dispute.

5.  At around the same time the Applicant’s employment was prematurely terminated, and when she was without income to send to her father in Indonesia who then informed her that his creditor had threatened to kill her, the Applicant was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her subsequent arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 23 May 2024 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 14 June 2024 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all the applicable grounds including risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115 (“Torture Risk”), risk of her absolute or non-derogable rights under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383 (“HKBOR”) being violated including right to life under Article 2 (“BOR 2 Risk”), risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of HKBOR (“BOR 3 Risk”), and risk of persecution with reference to the non-refoulement principle under Article 33 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“Persecution Risk”).

7.  In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from her former husband or her father’s creditor upon her return to Indonesia as low due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of either of them to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her for money, that in any event these were private monetary disputes between them only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant if resorted to, and that reliable and objective Country of Origin Information (“COI”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Indonesia with a large population of 279 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 1.9 million square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from her home district in large cities such as Surabaya or Makassar where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate her.

8.  The Applicant then lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she attended an oral hearing on 2 October 2024 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 17 October 2024 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.  In its decision the Board did not take issue with the Applicant’s claim of fear of harm from her former husband and her father’s creditor that caused her to overstay in Hong Kong to seek protection, but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of either of them to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her for money, and that in any event these were private monetary disputes between them without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Indonesia as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for her to move safely to other parts of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.  On 14 January 2025 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in her Form or her supporting affirmation of the same date other than a regurgitation of her claim as before but without putting forth any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor was she able to do so at the hearing of her application. As such, and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in her process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis for her intended challenge.

11.  As has been repeatedly emphasized by the Court of Appeal, judicial review does not operate as a rehearing of a non-refoulement claim when the proper occasion for the Applicant to present and articulate his claim is in the screening process and interview before the Immigration Department and in the process before the Board where the evaluation of the risk of harm is primarily a matter for the Director and the Board as they are entitled to make such evaluation based on the evidence available to them that the court will not usurp their role as primary decision makers in the absence of any legal error or procedural unfairness or irrationality in their decisions being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, as judicial review is not an avenue for revisiting the assessment by them in the hope that the court may consider the matter afresh: Re Lakhwinder Singh [2018] HKCA 246; Re Daljit Singh [2018] HKCA 328; Re Mudannayakalage Chaminda Pushpa Kumara [2018] HKCA 400; and Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524.

12.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in her claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of Indonesia, there is simply no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

13.  In the premises, and having considered the decisions of both the Director and the Board with rigorous examination and anxious scrutiny, I do not find any error of law or procedural unfairness in either of them, nor any failure on their part to apply high standards of fairness in their consideration and assessment of the Applicant’s claim.

14.  For all these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss her application.

Where leave to apply has been granted, Applicants and their legal advisers are reminded of their obligation to reconsider the merits of their application in the light of the Respondent’s evidence

Form CALL-1