LESTARI DESI v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 990/2023

[2026] HKCFI 1214

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 990 OF 2023

  Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

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

Following:

The application for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 40-year-old national of Indonesia who arrived in Hong Kong on 31 May 2018 with permission to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her last employment was completed on 31 May 2020 but she was unable to secure another employment, she did not depart and instead overstayed in Hong Kong, and was subsequently arrested by police on 16 December 2021.  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 creditor for failing to repay her debts.  She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Desa Bondan, Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia.  After leaving school she married her husband and raised a family with a son in her home district.

3.  In 2015 she went to Singapore to work as a domestic helper until 2017 when she returned to Indonesia, but shortly thereafter she and her husband were separated, and after their marriage eventually ended with a divorce, in order to support herself and her son the Applicant in early 2018 applied to work as a foreign domestic helper in Hong Kong, and to meet the necessary agency fees and expenses she borrowed a loan from a local money‑lender to be repaid by monthly instalments with interests which she intended to do from her salary to be earned in Hong Kong. 

4.  Accordingly she arrived in Hong Kong on 31 May 2018 to start her employment and to remit her monthly loan repayments to her creditor in Indonesia, but when her last employment was completed on 31 May 2020 and she was unable to secure another employment contract, she then defaulted in her loan repayment that her creditor started to send men to her parents’ home in Indonesia with threats to kill her for failing to repay her loan, and so 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 27 January 2022 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.             

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 5 May 2022 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”).

6.  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 creditor and followers even if real upon her return to Indonesia as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor 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 277 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 Bali where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

7.  On 18 May 2022 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, but for which she failed to attend the scheduled hearing on 22 February 2023 before the Board without any explanation or response to the subsequent inquiry from the Board as to her absence, nor did she request for another hearing for her appeal, whereupon the Board proceeded to deal with her appeal in her absence and on paper based on all the materials and information earlier submitted by her to the Director and available in the hearing bundle before the Board.  On 7 June 2023 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision[1] the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s claim which she failed to explain or clarify as she did not attend the hearing of her appeal without any cause that it doubted the credibility of her claim of fear of harm from any creditor over any debts that caused her to overstay in Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if her account of threats from her creditor over her debts were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only 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 by her creditor that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

9.  On 21 June 2023 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in her supporting affirmation of the same date she puts forward the following grounds for her intended challenge:

(1)   That the Adjudicator did not consider her claim and directly dismissed it without even taking time to think about her life;

(2)   That the Adjudicator unreasonably refused to allow her to submit her supporting documents without translation and failed to give her time to arrange for their translation;

(3)   That the translator was unhelpful and impatient with her during the hearing of her appeal.           

10.  These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant without any necessary or relevant particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they apply to her case as noted above that she never attended the hearing of her appeal or appeared before the Board to experience the behavior of either the Adjudicator or the translator as alleged, nor did she properly identify in her Form or affirmation as to how the Adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way was the Board’s decision unfair or unreasonable or that the Adjudicator had acted procedurally unfair or irrational with any relevant details or particulars.  As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable 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 her 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 even 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.  Moreover, the Applicant has recently on 27 January 2026 in writing requested to withdraw her application as her issues in her home country have been resolved that she now wants to return to Indonesia.

15.  For all these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and in view of her latest confirmation of no more issue for her to return to her home country, I accordingly dismiss her 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