AKHTAR JAVED v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 812/2018

[2020] HKCFI 2224

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No. 812 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 34-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 20 February 2008 with permission to remain as a visitor up to 5 March 2008 when he did not depart and instead overstayed and was arrested by police on 10 March 2008.  After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a torture claim later taken as a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by his former business partner over their business dispute.  He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Kidderpore, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.  After leaving school he worked as a salesman, and in 2006 he ran a trading business in electronic products and garments with a partner in his home district.

3.  However, in about 2007 the Applicant and his partner started to have disputes over some business loss which deteriorated when his partner demanded to leave the business and for the return of his capital investment, and when the Applicant refused, his partner’s brother then came with his men to the Applicant’s home to threaten to kill him and his family.

4.  Fearing for his life, the Applicant fled his home district to take shelter in his uncle’s place in Howrah, but when he later heard that his business partner and his men were looking for him everywhere, he felt it was no longer safe to remain in India, and so in early 2008 he departed for Hong Kong where he subsequently overstayed, and upon his arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form on 17 May 2016 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service.

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 24 October 2016 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 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”).

6.  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 he will face any real and substantial risk of being harmed or killed by his former business partner upon his return to India due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from him, that his problem with his business partner was a private business dispute 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 show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in India with a large population of 1.2 billion people spread across a vast territory of more than 2.9 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 part of India away from his home district in large cities such as Delhi where it would be difficult if not impossible for his former business partner to locate him.

7.  On 7 November 2016 the Applicant 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 22 February 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the adjudicator for the Board.  On 27 April 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

8.  In its decision the Board accepted that the Applicant may have had a dispute with his former business partner over their business but found no reliable evidence other than his bare assertions of threats from his business partner and doubted his claimed fear of risk of such harm that caused him to leave India for Hong Kong, and that in any event with reasonable internal relocation within India for the Applicant to move safely to other area away from his home district without any risk of being located by his former partner that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.  On 9 May 2018 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he merely attached a copy of that decision and other documents from the hearing bundle for his appeal to the Board but without putting forward any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor did he request any oral hearing for his application.  As such 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, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis for his intended challenge.

10.  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.

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

12.  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.

13.  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