莊裕安 v. 終審法院司法常務官AND ANOTHER

CACV 216/2019
and CACV 217/2019
(Heard together)

[2020] HKCA 587

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 216 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 25/2019)

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CIVIL APPEAL NO 217 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 1699/2018)

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(HEARD TOGETHER)

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JUDGMENT

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

Introduction

1.  On 13 May 2020, the Applicant filed his Notices of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) against this Court’s judgment of 26 March 2020, [2020] HKCA 177.  As the Applicant had indicated that he is well conversant with the English language, this judgment is written in the English language.

2.  In the present Notices of Motion applying for leave to appeal to the CFA, the Applicant has raised the following issues that are potentially relevant for leave to appeal[1]:

(1)    whether the Chief Justice and the Permanent Judges (as well as some of the Non-Permanent Judges) of the CFA should be recused or disqualified from the CFA’s Appeal Committee under S 18(2A) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484 for the purposes of these proceedings;

(2)    whether the Chief Justice, if required to be recused or disqualified as above, has the power to nominate any Non-Permanent Judges to the Appeal Committee who would not be disqualified; and

(3)    whether it was unfair and an abuse of the Rule 7 procedure for the Registrar to decline to provide reasons for issuing a summons under Rule 7 of the CFA Rules.

3.  Questions relating to the composition of the Appeal Committee, as held by this Court at [10] of the judgment of 26 March 2020, fall within the scope of CACV 552/2019 instead of the present appeal.  That appeal is yet to be heard.  Thus, questions (1) and (2) cannot form the bases for an application for leave to appeal in the context of the present appeal. 

4.  On question (3), up to now the Applicant has not advanced any arguable basis to refute the reasons effectively given by Chow J (and upheld by this Court at [17] to [18] of our judgment) to dismiss his case in that respect.

5.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484 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.

6.  In the exercise of such discretion, the Court must also have regard to the arguability of the questions raised by an applicant.

7.  In the present application, as explained above, the Applicant failed to raise any reasonably arguable question arising in the appeal which by reason of its great general or public importance, or otherwise, ought to be submitted to the CFA for decision.

8.  In the circumstances, we refuse to grant leave. We dismiss the Applicant’s Notices of Motion filed 13 May 2020 accordingly.