RE LAL ROHAN

CACV 151/2019

[2019] HKCA 1085

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 151 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 1177/2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Lam Ag CJHC (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  On 19 July 2019, the Court (Lam Ag CJHC and Andrew Chan J) handed down a judgment ([2019] HCA 799) dismissing the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge K W Lung dated 14 March 2019 ([2019] HKCFI 609). In the latter decision, the judge refused leave for the applicant to apply for judicial review.

2.  In the notice of motion filed on 23 July 2019, the applicant sought leave to appeal against the Court’s judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.  In the notice, he advanced the following grounds of appeal:

(1)  The judgment did not make logical sense;

(2)  The lack of assistance provided to him was an error of law or procedure, or evidence of procedural unfair, or failure to adhere to a high standard of fairness;

(3)  The Court failed to address the issues regarding (6) to (9) of his skeleton submission dated 14 June 2019;

(4)  It was a basic right of a non-refoulement claimant to understand what was decided against him, and to deprive of such a right amounted to a deprivation of right to seek further avenue of appeal or review;

(5)  Because he could not understand the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board, as well as the judge’s decision, he was not able to come up with grounds challenging such decisions;

(6)  He was able to obtain assistance from a friend in preparing court documents in the proceedings below, but the assistance was not professional;

(7)  The judgment was made with the lack of evidential consideration of issues raised in court; and

(8)  If a litigant had not been given an opportunity to be heard with such assistance, it could not be said that such assistance could not be of any use in the first place.

3.  He lodged written submissions on 6 August 2019.  In addition to repeating the grounds stated in the notice of motion, the applicant further submitted that:

(1)  The Court failed to address the issues regarding (4) to (7) of his summons (sic) dated 14 June 2019[1] (para 3);

(2)  The Court should not have dismissed his appeal unless it was satisfied that he understood the contents of the judgment (para 6);

(3)  He did not know what to be included in his written submission because of the lack of language assistance, and this was a discrimination against people with no legal assistance (paras 8 & 11);

(4)  Lack of language assistance amounted to procedural unfairness and should be taken into account by the authorities (paras 12 & 13); and

(5)  There was a lack of transparency in processing non-refoulement claims (para 14).

4.  Notwithstanding the request of the applicant, we do not see any reason to depart from the usual practice of determining applications for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on paper without an oral hearing: see: Practice Direction 2.1, para 3.

5.  Most of the grounds of appeal (including the grounds alleging that the Court failed to consider issues raised in the applicant’s skeleton submissions for the appeal) regurgitate the complaint regarding the lack of language assistance.  The Court has already addressed this issue in paras 17 & 18 of the judgment. 

6.  Having read all the documents of the applicant, we cannot find any reasonably arguable grounds of appeal.  

7.  Further, the matters stated in the notice of motion and the written submissions raised no question of great general or public importance, as required under Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484).  We cannot find any basis for leave to be granted on the “otherwise” limb.  Accordingly, the statutory thresholds for granting leave appeal to the Court of Final Appeal are not met.

8.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to the applicant to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal. We dismiss the notice of motion accordingly.