AKRAM NAVEED v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 1052/2018

[2021] HKCFI 555

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No. 1052 of 2018

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

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

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;     or
	consideration of the documents and oral submissions by (counsel for) the Applicant in open court / the Applicant being absent in open court;

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

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 36-year-old national of Pakistan who entered Hong Kong illegally on 15 March 2016 and was arrested by police on 17 April 2016. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Pakistan he would be harmed or killed by the local supporters of the political party Pakistan Muslim League (N) (“PML(N)”) for leaving them to join their rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (“PTI”). He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Village Pothi, Tehsil & District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan where he assisted his father in running their family store, and followed his family’s tradition to support PML(N) but without holding any official post in the party.

3.  However, the Applicant eventually became disillusioned with PML(N)’s policies and performance, and wanted to support PTI instead in the forthcoming general election, and after his discussion with his family and relatives, he was able to persuade all of them to switch their support to PTI except his relative Rab Nawaz (“RN”) who insisted that they should remain faithful to PML(N) and was unhappy with their decision.

4.  One night in mid-2015 there was a burglary in his father’s store resulting in severe financial losses to his family, although no report was made to the police, the Applicant suspected that it was RN who was behind the robbery due to his anger over their decision to leave PML(N) for PTI, and as he was fearful that RN may get the other local supporters of PML(N) to take further actions against him, the Applicant therefore fled to Lahore to take shelter in his cousin’s place, and on 31 January 2016 he departed Pakistan for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 17 October 2016 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).     

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 7 December 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 assessed the level of risk of harm from upon his return to Pakistan as low due to the absence of any past ill-treatment from RN or any PML(N) supporters, that there is no reliable evidence of any threats from them other than the Applicant’s own speculation, that no harm has ever happened to his family despite having changed their support from PML(N) to PTI since the Applicant’s departure, that in any event 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 Pakistan with a large population of 201 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 796,000 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 Pakistan away from his home district such as Lahore where he had stayed before without incidents and where it would be difficult if not impossible for RN or any PML(N) supporters to locate him.

7.  On 19 December 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 13 March 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 4 June 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

8.  In its decision the Board found no evidence of any threats from RN or any PML(N) people against the Applicant or his family who have never been harmed by anyone in Pakistan since the Applicant’s departure, nor any reason to believe that they would have any adverse interest in the Applicant given the fact that he was only a PTI supporter with no influence or official post, that his assertion that the burglary of his father’s store was committed by RN was entirely his groundless speculation, and that in any event there is no reason why he could not if he so wishes to safely return to Lahore where he had stayed before without incidents or other areas of Pakistan without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.      

9.  On 8 June 2018 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forth the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)  Misdirection in the Law in that the Adjudicator misdirected herself 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 Pakistan;

(5)  Irrationality in the Adjudicator’s failure to analyze and assess whether state protection exists in Pakistan 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 her 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.  

10.  All these however appear to me to have been just copied from some pro forma statement commonly used in this type of applications but wholly irrelevant to the facts of the Applicant’s claim, or are just some broad and vague assertions of his 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.

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 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.

12.  The only other complaint which the Applicant appeared to have made with an 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.

13.  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 decisions should be well familiar to the Applicant as they had earlier all been made available to him when he still had legal representation from DLS, 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.

14.  In the Applicant’s case, the Board rejected his claim essentially on its adverse finding on his credibility for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in paragraphs 29 – 45 of its decision with the benefit of hearing him in his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim, 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 to challenge the finding of the Board.  

15.  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 the Applicant’s claim if true is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Pakistan, that there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.     

16.  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.

17.  Furthermore, on 2 February 2021 the Applicant filed an affirmation to request to withdraw and dismiss his application and to stop all further procedures of his court proceedings.

18.  As such and for the reasons given, I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and in view of his latest confirmation of his wish to stop all his court proceedings and to withdraw his application, I accordingly accede to his request and dismiss 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