RE SAMIULLAH

CAMP 294/2019

[2021] HKCA 45

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 294 OF 2019

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 1265 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Yeung VP (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  By a judgment dated 11 August 2020 ([2020] HKCA 596), this Court (Yeung VP and Chu JA) dismissed the applicant’s application for an extension of time to appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan (“the Judge”) given on 17 May 2019 in HCAL 1265/2018 refusing to grant him leave to apply for judicial review. The applicant sought to review the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) dated the 27 April 2018 dismissing his petition/appeal from the decision of the Director of Immigration (“Director”) given on 6 January 2017 rejecting his non-refoulement claim.

2.  By a notice of motion dated 11 September 2020, the applicant now seeks leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on the grounds that:

“I would like to inform the Honourable Court that there is some error in law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on COL information and my previous facts which were in favour while rejecting my claim. Actual life occur different situation then what is mentioned in COL information. The Officer and courts prefer to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of this violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The Decision is betray a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.”

3.  Pursuant to the directions made by the Registrar of Civil Appeals on 15 September 2020, the applicant should lodge his written submissions on or before 25 September 2020.  However, he failed to comply with the said direction.

4.  The Registrar further directed that unless the court otherwise directs, the notice of motion shall be determined on papers only without an oral hearing.  As it is appropriate to do so, this application is processed on papers without an oral hearing.

5.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap. 484) provides that an appeal shall lie to the Court of Final Appeal at the discretion of the Court of Appeal or the Court of Final Appeal, from any judgment of the Court of Appeal in any civil cause or matter, whether final or interlocutory, if, in the opinion of the Court of Appeal or the Court of Final Appeal, as the case may be, the question involved in the appeal is one which, by reason of its great general or public importance, or otherwise, ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision.

6.  None of the grounds set out in the notice of motion pinpoint any error of law or procedure in our judgment and therefore, they are not viable grounds of appeal.  Further, as stated in [24] of our judgment, the applicant’s case was rejected by the Board on the issue of credibility as he had exaggerated his case to boost his non-refoulement claim.  We endorsed the Board’s decision and the applicant failed to provide any justifiable ground to reverse our judgment.

7.  For the reasons that we gave in our judgment of 11 August 2020, we do not see any prospect of success in the applicant’s intended appeal against the Judge’s decision and order.  None of the questions raised by the applicant in the notice of motion involves an arguable point or a question of great general or public importance.  We do not see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb under section 22(1)(b) either.  The statutory criteria for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal is not met.

8.  Accordingly, we refuse to give the applicant leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal and dismiss his notice of motion.