BUI VAN THANG v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 420/2021

[2025] HKCFI 5205

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 420 OF 2021

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 Applicant being absent in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 35-year-old national of Vietnam who entered Hong Kong illegally on 14 July 2019 and was arrested on 23 September 2019 for undertaking unauthorized employment for which he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 months, during which he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection to the Immigration Department on the basis that if he returned to Vietnam he would be harmed or killed by his creditor over his outstanding debts.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Xom An Trai, Xa An Lu, Huyen Thuy Nguyen, Hai Phong, Vietnam. After leaving school he worked as a sailor in his home district to make his living.

3.  In 2019, he started his own fishing business by purchasing a fishing boat with the help of a loan borrowed from a local money-lender with monthly interest payments which he initially managed to make from his business income.

4.  However, he subsequently lost his business after his fishing boat hit some reef and sank, and when he defaulted with his loan repayments, his creditor started to send men to threaten him, and after being beaten by those men on 2 occasions, and with a warning that he would be killed next time if he still failed to repay his debts, and so he fled to Mong Cai, and on 14 July 2019 he departed Vietnam for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon his arrest he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 19 May 2020 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 10 July 2020, 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 his creditor and followers upon his return to Vietnam 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 his creditor to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to repay his debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between him and his creditor only without 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 Vietnam with a large population of 98 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 331,000 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 Ho Chi Minh City where it would be difficult if not impossible for his creditor to locate him.

7.  On 20 July 2020, 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 8 December 2020 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 16 March 2021, his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision[1], the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted the credibility of his claim of fear of harm from any creditor over any debts that caused him to leave his country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if such claim were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of his creditor to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to repay his debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between him and his creditor only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to Vietnam 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 by his creditor that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.  On 23 March 2021, 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 his supporting affirmation of the same date in which he just repeated his claim as before but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor did he request any oral hearing for his application. 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 of the Board’s decision.

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 Vietnam, 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.  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.

13.  For all these reasons, I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss his 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