MD MOBARAK HOSSIN SHAMIM v. SIU CHAK-YU, ESQ., TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 2041/2018

[2020] HKCFI 1129

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No. 2041 of 2018

     Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord. 53 r. 3)

Following:

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 36-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 7 August 2013 and was arrested by police on 10 August 2013.  After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain local supporters of rival political party Awami League (“AL”).  He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh.  After leaving school he ran his own business making iron furniture, got married and raised a family of two children, and became a supporter of the then ruling party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”) and joined its local ward as a publicity secretary in his home district.

3.  However, after AL won the 2008 general election and came into power, the Applicant and his fellow BNP members began to experience threats and harassments from the local AL supporters with demands to join their party, but the Applicant always rejected them.

4.  One day in December 2012 the Applicant was confronted by several AL supporters near his home who again demanded that he switched allegiance to their party, and when the Applicant again refused, they punched him violently that his right arm was broken until they were intervened by other neighbours who then brought the Applicant to the local hospital for medical treatments.

5.  After he was discharged from the hospital, the Applicant did not report the matter to the police, but as he was fearful of further attacks from the AL supporters, he therefore departed Bangladesh on 6 March 2013 for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon his arrest by the police he raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 4 July 2017 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service.

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 2 August 2017 the Director of Immigration (“the 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 his absolute or non-derogable rights under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights (“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 found no substantial grounds for believing that his claimed risk of harm from those local AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh is real and foreseeable due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no reliable evidence to suggest that he had been specifically targeted by the AL people given his low position in his party, that in any event after all these years that it is doubtful that they would still have any adverse interest in him, that in the absence of 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 Bangladesh with a large population of 156 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 140,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able‑bodied adult with working experience to move to other part of Bangladesh away from his home district in large cities such as Chittagong where it would be difficult if not impossible for those local AL supporters to locate him.

8.  The Applicant then lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 4 May 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the Adjudicator for the Board.  On 7 September 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

9.  In its decision the Board found serious inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence as to his political involvement in BNP and that he was evasive and reluctant to answer questions raised of his claim which further undermined its reliability that it did not accept that he was a witness of truth as to his claim of fear of risk of harm from those AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh, and that in any event with reasonable internal relocation available for him to move safely to other parts of Bangladesh away from his home district without any fear of being located by those AL supporters that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.  On 26 September 2018 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)      misdirection in Law in that the Adjudicator misdirected himself on the law by taking into account that the Applicant had to have experienced torture in the past in order to establish substantial grounds to believe that there was a risk of torture in the future;

(2)      procedural impropriety/unfairness in the Adjudicator’s failure to carry out sufficient research and inquiry into COI and for failing to have regard to relevant and up-to-date COI in the consideration of his claim;

(3)      irrationality in the Adjudicator’s failure to take into account or putting proper weight on relevant COI and for cherry-picking and putting weight on irrelevant COI in the consideration of his claim;

(4)      irrationality in the Adjudicator’s failure to evaluate and make finding of fact as to whether a consistent pattern of gross and mass violation of human rights in Bangladesh;

(5)      irrationality in the Adjudicator’s failure to analyze and assess whether state protection exists in Bangladesh and misdirected himself as to the extended meaning of state protection;

(6)      irrationality in the Board’s decision in taking into account and putting weight in irrelevant consideration or based on incorrect or inaccurate facts;

(7)      procedural impropriety for failure to call for psychological and psychiatric evaluations and reports on the Applicant;

(8)      procedural impropriety/unfairness in the Adjudicator applying the incorrect standard of proof in his decision; and

(9)      procedural impropriety/unfairness due to lack of or insufficient representation from the assigned duty lawyer for the Applicant resulting in unfair procedure.

11.  These are however all just broad and vague assertions of the Applicant containing several pages of key words and phrases but without any particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they applied to his case or how the Board or the Adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way did the Adjudicator fail to take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or why it was necessary or relevant to call for psychological or psychiatric evaluations in his case, or in what way was his legal representation from his assigned lawyer insufficient.  None of these assertions were elaborated or presented with any particulars or specifics by the Applicant, and as such I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.

12.  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.

13.  The only other complaint which the Applicant appeared to have made with any elaboration was about the hearing bundle being provided to him only a few days before his appeal hearing before the Board which consisted of the Director’s skeleton submission and other documents all of which were in English and thereby given him insufficient time to prepare for his appeal.

14.  Even if it is true that the hearing bundle indeed came to him late as alleged, and the Applicant never provided any proof such as the date of the covering letter that accompanied the hearing bundle, I note that most of the documents including his NCF, records of his screening interviews and the Director’s decision should be well familiar to the Applicant as they had earlier all been made available to him when he still had legal representation, whilst his NCF was completed on his own instructions with legal assistance, and that at his oral hearing he never raised any issue or requested the Adjudicator for further time to enable him to better prepare for his appeal.  Accordingly I do not find anything amiss arising from the hearing bundle for the Applicant in his appeal before the Board.

15.  Essentially his claim was rejected by the Board on its adverse finding on his credibility for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in paragraphs 30 – 39 of its decision with the benefit of hearing his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim during his appeal hearing, and in the absence of any error of law or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant with sufficient particulars and elaboration, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis to challenge the finding of the Board.

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

17.  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.

18.  For these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and I accordingly refuse his leave 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