HOSSAIN ALTAF v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 2689/2019

[2025] HKCFI 1742

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2689 OF 2019

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 the Applicant in open court;

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

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 33-year-old national of Bangladesh who arrived in Hong Kong on 16 July 2013 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 30 July 2013 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and almost 1 year later on 9 June 2014 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain local supporters of the political party Awami League (“AL”) as he supported their rival Jamaat-e-Islami (“JeI”). He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Dakshin Sutolkathi, Koneswar, District Shariatpur, Bangladesh where he followed his family’s tradition to support JeI regularly attended their meetings and political activities by outing up the party’s banners and posters in his home village without holding any official post in the party, and during which he and his fellow JeI supporters frequently came into violent confrontations with the local AL supporters which invariably deteriorated into mass brawls between them.

3.  On one such occasion in August 2008 when the Applicant and his fellow supporters were on their way home after attending a local JeI rally, they were ambushed and attacked by a group of AL supporters with knives and hockey sticks that the Applicant suffered serious injuries that he fell and became unconscious, and had to be subsequently taken to the local clinic for medical treatments.

4.  Thereafter the Applicant became fearful for his life and fled to Dhaka to take shelter in a friend’s place, but as the threats and attacks on JeI supporters became more frequent after AL became the ruling party, the Applicant decided that it was no longer safe to remain in Bangladesh, and so on 16 July 2013 he departed for Hong Kong where he overstayed and subsequently raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 10 October 2018 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 November 2018 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 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 those local AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh 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 them to seriously harm or kill him or any political reason to specifically target him given that he was just an ordinary JeI supporter without any official post in the party and that these were just intimidations and harassments between rival supporters common in Bangladesh, 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 Bangladesh with a large population of 157 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 148,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Dhaka where he had stayed before without incidents and where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

7.  On 19 November 2018 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 31 July 2019 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 16 August 2019 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of harm from those local AL supporters that caused him to leave the country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him or to have any political reason to specifically target him given that he was just an ordinary JeI supporter without any official post in the party, and that in any event in the absence of any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to Bangladesh as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for him to move safely to other parts of the country away from his home district without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.  On 16 September 2019 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 or in his supporting affirmation of the same date in which he merely repeated his claim as before and just stated that the Adjudicator did not properly consider his claim but without providing any details or particulars or elaboration as to how or to put forward any proper ground for his intended challenge. As such, and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality 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 decisions that the risk of harm in his claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Bangladesh, 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.  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.  Moreover, the Applicant at the hearing of his application requested to withdraw his application as he believes that AL is no longer the ruling party of his country that it is now safe for him to return to Bangladesh.

14.  In the premises, as I am for the given reasons 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 that it is safe for him to return to his home country, I accordingly 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