RE ALI DANISH

CACV 29/2026, [2026] HKCA 497

On Appeal From [2026] HKCFI 193

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 29 OF 2026

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 1838 OF 2020)

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J U D G M E N T

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

Introduction

1.  This is the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan (“the Judge”) given on 8 January 2026[1] refusing his application for leave to apply for judicial review against the decision dated 9 September 2020 of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”).  By its decision, the Board dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision dated 22 May 2020 of the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) which rejected the applicant’s non-refoulement claim having regard to the torture risk[2] , BOR 3 risk[3] , persecution risk[4] and BOR 2[5] risk grounds.

Background

2.  The applicant is a national of Pakistan born in 1995. He entered Hong Kong illegally and surrendered to the Immigration Department on 3 February 2020.  He made a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Pakistan, he would be harmed or killed by the family of a woman who died as a result of being knocked over by the applicant’s car in a traffic accident.  He also feared he would be arrested and harmed by the police for jumping bail and failure to attend the criminal trial of the traffic accident. Details of the applicant’s claim and the arguments advanced before the Board as well as the Board’s reasons for rejecting his appeal are set out in the Board’s decision[6] .

3.  By a Form 86 filed on 15 September 2020, the applicant applied for leave to judicially review the Board’s decision.  The Judge has set out the applicant’s grounds for seeking relief and his reasons for refusing the application in [12] to [18] of the Form CALL-1.  We will not repeat them.

This appeal

4.  The applicant filed a Notice of Appeal on 13 January 2026 to appeal the Judge’s decision.  In summary, his stated grounds of appeal are that: (1) the Judge wrongly applied a stringent and merits-based approach in refusing leave, and failed to apply the required standard of anxious scrutiny to non-refoulement claims under the BOR 2 and BOR 3 risk grounds; (2) the Judge erred in treating the Board’s adverse credibility findings as determinative without examining their legality and rationality; (3) the Judge failed to consider whether the Board was impermissibly rigid in assessing the relevance of the country conditions in Pakistan concerning access to official documentation and state protection; and (4) the Judge erred in accepting, without proper scrutiny, the Board’s conclusion on internal relocation.

5.  The appeal was listed for hearing on 9 March 2026. By the Court’s directions given on 13 January 2026, the applicant was required to lodge a written skeleton submission by 9 February 2026, and further warned that failure to do so would result in the hearing being vacated and the appeal being determined on paper.  The applicant did not lodge any written submissions by the prescribed time. The hearing date was accordingly vacated. We have proceeded to process this appeal on paper based on the available materials.

Our reasons for decision

6.  In assessing the merits of the appeal, we have regard to the legal principles which this Court has adopted in dealing with appeals in non-refoulement cases: see Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524 at [14]; Re Md Shohel Sheak [2018] HKCA 714 at [13]; and Re Limbu Birkhaman [2019] HKCA 50 at [11].  In particular, the role of the Court in a judicial review is not to provide a further avenue of appeal.  The Court will not intervene by way of judicial review unless there are errors of law or procedural unfairness or irrationality in the decision of the Board.  In the determination of an appeal against the refusal of leave by the Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal will only examine the decision of the judge in light of the grounds advanced by the applicant.  If no viable ground is put forward to reverse the judge’s decision, the appeal should be dismissed.  It is not the role of this Court to examine the decision of the Board afresh as if the appeal were a fresh application for judicial review.

7.  It is well-established that assessments of evidence, country of origin information (COI), risk of harm, state protection and viability of internal relocation are primarily within the province of the Board and the Director as they are primary decision makers. The Court, in its supervisory role, will not intervene by way of judicial review unless there are errors of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality in the decision of the Board: Re Kartini [2019] HKCA 1022.

8.  In the present case, the Board found the applicant’s claim not credible for a number of reasons.  First, while the fatal accident claimed by the applicant was established, there was no evidence implicating the applicant as the driver in the traffic accident. Second, the applicant had provided no concrete evidence of his involvement in the accident, such as police reports or court documents, despite claiming to have access to them. Third, the applicant knew nothing about the victim named in the accident or her politically influential family whom the applicant claimed was seeking revenge against him. Fourth, it was inexplicable that after the applicant had jumped bail, he twice left and returned to the country without apparent trouble. Fifth, the applicant’s claim of participating in a music video as a male actor while in hiding further undermined his credibility. The Board concluded that the applicant failed to substantiate any of the claims entitling him to non-refoulement protection. The Board further had regard to the available COI and assessed that internal relocation within Pakistan was reasonably viable, given the applicant’s background and the availability of alternative safe locations.

9.  These are findings of fact open to the Board based on the evidence it received and for the reasons it gave. In his application for leave to apply for judicial review, the applicant had not pointed to any specific error in the Board’s findings or provide any particulars to support his assertions that the Board’s decision was wrong, unfair or irrational.  The complaints in the Notice of Appeal about the Board’s findings on the COI and the prospect of internal relocation are no more than vague and general assertions.  The applicant has failed to show any reasonably arguable public law error in relation to the Board’s decision.

10.  Similarly, the complaints levelled against the Judge’s decision are general statements without engaging the reasons given by the Judge in [12] and [13] of the Form CALL-1. The applicant has not demonstrated with particulars there is error in the reasoning and decision of the Judge.  We are satisfied that the Judge gave proper and adequate reasons for his conclusion that the intended judicial review has no reasonable prospect of success.

11.  The applicant’s appeal is accordingly dismissed.

[1] [2026] HKCFI 193

[2] This refers to the risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115.

[3] This refers to risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of section 8 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383.

[4] This refers to the risk of persecution with reference to the non‑refoulement principle under Article 33 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

[5] This refers to the risk of being arbitrarily deprived of life under article 2 of section 8 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383.

[6] https://legalref.judiciary.hk/doc/judg/html/vetted/other/en/2020/HCAL001838_2020_files/the_Board's_Decision.pdf