張朝喜 v. 香港高等法院 AND OTHERS

HCAL 184/2018

[2025] HKCFI 5795

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 184 OF 2018

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D E C I S I O N

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A.  Introduction

1.  These proceedings are very stale. They were commenced by the Applicant’s Form 86 dated 7 February 2018 – approaching eight years ago.

2.  The Form 86 sought leave to apply for judicial review so as to challenge (1) decisions of the Labour Tribunal in LBTC 3735/2015 on 7 June 2016 and LBTC 2984/2016 on 11 April 2017, (2) decisions of the Director of Legal Aid refusing the grant of legal aid to the Applicant; and (3) decisions of the Registrar of the High Court dismissing the Applicant’s legal aid appeals LAA 555/2017 and LAA 1066/2017 both on 8 December 2017.

3.  On 12 February 2018, Chow J (as Chow JA then was) directed there to be an ex parte oral hearing of the application for leave to apply for judicial review. He further directed the Applicant to file an affidavit or affirmation exhibiting copies of all the decisions which he intended to challenge by way of judicial review.

4.  Following correspondence from the Applicant, Chow J gave further directions on 15 March 2018. He permitted the Applicant to apply to amend the Form 86 by summons, and directed that the amendment application would be considered at the oral hearing. The directions previously given stood, except that time for filing the affidavit or affirmation would be extended to 29 March 2018. It was further directed that unless the affidavit or affirmation had been filed on or before 29 March 2018, the application for leave to apply for judicial review would be dismissed.

5.  An affirmation was filed by the Applicant on 28 March 2018. On the same day, the Applicant filed a summons seeking leave to amend the Form 86, to expand the number of putative respondents and the scope of the application.

6.  On 29 March 2018, Chow J directed the oral hearing to be fixed with one hour reserved. The hearing was later fixed for 24 September 2018. However, by letter dated 10 September 2018, the Applicant requested that the oral hearing date be vacated and re-fixed no earlier than three months later.

7.  On 18 September 2018, Chow J directed the hearing of the application for leave to apply for judicial review fixed for 24 September 2018 to be vacated, with liberty to the Applicant to re-fix the hearing date not earlier than three months from the date of the direction, with one hour reserved.

8.  Following that direction, the Applicant took no further steps in the proceedings, despite the passage of over 7 years.

9.  However, it seems that the Applicant made an application for legal aid, which was refused by the Director on 24 July 2019.

10.  The long-stagnant proceedings were brought to my attention recently. On 11 November 2025 I directed that unless by 4pm on 21 November 2025 I should hear from any party requesting a different course of action – which request, if made, I would consider – then the proceedings would be dismissed forthwith, with no order as to costs.

11.  By letter dated 18 November 2025, the Applicant wrote to the Court in the following terms (in English translation):

In light of the defendant’s contempt of the law and the court, fabrication of evidence and his perjury, as well as violation of law and order, for the purpose of upholding fairness and justice, the applicant hereby seeks:

1.  Resumption of proceeding, and for the applicant, i.e. the plaintiff, would like to submit new evidence;

2.  The plaintiff (applicant), who was previously employed by the defendant, initiated a legal action to claim unpaid wages. While the defendant has formidable legal resources including even a Counsel (Counsel and Judge Chan Kam Chuen, rated $80,000 per hour) and is backed by trillions of dollars of funds, the plaintiff has been unable to afford a single lawyer in the litigation or advocacy since the beginning, leading to a lack of knowledge and understanding and passivity in some legal procedures. In the circumstances above, the plaintiff appeals to a righteous judge for resolutely upholding judicial fairness and justice, and defending the court’s dignity.

Costs to be borne by the defendant

B.  Consideration of Request

12.  As is obvious from the Applicant’s letter, he wishes to resume the Labour Tribunal claim previously brought by him against his former employer. However, his Labour Tribunal claims were dismissed as long ago as 2016 and 2017. The time within which any appeals from those decisions might have been lodged expired long ago. Indeed, these proceedings were themselves issued after the expiry of the usual 3-month long-stop period for making a judicial review challenge.

13.  In any event, this Court exercising its judicial review jurisdiction does not sit as an appellate court from decisions of the Labour Tribunal. The attempted resort to judicial review in respect of a dismissed wages claim is inapt.

14.  Similarly, once the Applicant appealed to the Registrar from the refusals by the Director of Legal Aid, no judicial review challenge lay in respect of the Director’s decision. The Applicant had, and he pursued, the available alternative remedy of an appeal.

15.  As to the Registrar’s decisions on the legal aid appeals, it is trite that the Court exercising its judicial review jurisdiction does not sit as a further tier of appeal from the Registrar’s decision, and the Court will only potentially interfere on conventional administrative law grounds. However, the papers do not seem to me to identify any public law grounds of review of the Registrar’s decisions.

16.  In any event, the whole matter has become stale, and the Applicant has in practical terms abandoned these proceedings when he failed to fix the directed hearing of his own application (likely awaiting and then after the refusal of legal aid). Even if any judicial review grounds were ultimately to be made out, it is highly likely that any discretionary relief would be refused in light of the significant and essentially unexplained delay.

17.  Applicants for leave to apply for judicial review cannot just leave their application in abeyance for years, without taking any active steps to progress the application, in the hope that it might somehow be kept alive until the Court ‘shakes the tree’. But, in any event, nothing in the Applicant’s recent letter identifies a proper reason why these judicial review proceedings should now be permitted to continue.

C.  Result

18.  In the circumstances, I exercise my case management discretion to dismiss these proceedings. Hence, the Applicant’s application for leave to apply for judicial is dismissed.

19.  I make no order as to costs.