RE WAKALAT RAZA

CAMP 134/2019

[2020] HKCA 866

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO 134 OF 2019

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 991 OF 2017)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Au JA (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  On 2 July 2020, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) against this Court’s (Cheung and Au JJA) judgment of 19 June 2020 (“the Judgment”) [2020] HKCA 493.

2.  In the Judgment, we refused to grant extension of time to the applicant to appeal against the decision of Campbell-Moffat J dated 14 December 2018 refusing the applicant leave to apply for judicial review [2018] HKCFI 2541.

3.  The facts and issues in the appeal, as well as the Court’s reasons for dismissing it, are set out in the Judgment.  We will not repeat them here.  After reviewing the Notice of Motion, pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice and proceed to consider this application without an oral hearing.

4.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484 (“HKCFAO”) provides that an appeal shall lie to the CFA at the discretion of this Court or the CFA if 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 CFA for decision.

5.  The following grounds for leave to appeal were set out in the Notice of Motion:

“I would like to [inform] the Honourable Court that there is some error in law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on COI Information and my previous facts which were in favour while rejecting my claim. Actual life occur different situation then what is mentioned in COI Information. The Officer and[court] prefers 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.” [sic]

6.  In his supporting affirmation of 2 July 2020, the applicant simply stated that he wished to challenge the decisions of this Court, of the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) and of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) as these decisions were unreasonable and failed to take into account many things.  He further exhibited the Judgment to his supporting affirmation. In his written submissions of 15 July 2020, he merely repeated that the Director, the Board as well as the courts failed to take into account many things and issues.  Other than that, he did not identify with any particularities as to the alleged errors or unreasonableness in the Judgment.

7.  In our view, the matters raised in the Notice of Motion, the affirmation and written submissions are bare and vague assertions without disclosing any reasonably arguable grounds of appeal that would disturb the Judgment.  In any event, no question of great general or public importance has been raised and there is no other reason that the matter ought to be submitted to the CFA for decision.  Plainly, the statutory requirements under section 22(1)(b) of the HKCFAO are not met.

8.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA.  We dismiss the Notice of Motion accordingly.