ISLAM MD DIN v. FISHER, PAUL STEPHEN, ESQ., TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 2152/2018

[2020] HKCFI 1477

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No. 2152 of 2018

     Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord. 53 r. 3)

Following:

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 27-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 26 November 2014 and was arrested by police on the same day. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain local supporters of rival political party Awami League (“AL”).  He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Village Nangla Pata, District Bhola, Bangladesh.  After leaving school he worked in his family’s fruit store, and became a supporter of the political party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”) without holding any post or office in that party.

3.  In January 2014 AL won the national election and became the ruling party.  Shortly thereafter their supporters started to harass, threaten and attack supporters of their rival parties including BNP as well as causing damage and destruction to their properties.

4.  On 6 January 2014 some local AL supporters from his home village came to the Applicant’s family store to cause disturbances by throwing and damaging things in the shop, and when the Applicant tried to stop them, they beat him with wooden sticks causing bleeding in his head and bruises all over his body that he lost consciousness and was subsequently brought by his parents to the local clinic for medical treatments.

5.  Afterwards, the Applicant reported the matter to the police, but no follow-up investigation appeared to have been taken by them, and when he and his father tried to re-open their store for business, those AL people came again to threaten them that if they wanted to live and to carry on with their business, they had to join their party.

6.  Fearing for his safety, the Applicant then fled to Dhaka to take shelter at a friend’s place where he stayed for several months without incidents, but when some of those AL people came to his friend’s place and threatened him, the Applicant fled to Sylhet District where he made arrangement with his agents to depart Bangladesh, which he did on 23 November 2014 for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 22 September 2017 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service.

7.  By a Notice of Decision dated 6 November 2017 the Director of Immigration (“the 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”).

8.  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 those local AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no reliable evidence that he was specifically targeted by them given that he was just a lowly BNP supporter with no post or office in the party, that in any event in the absence of 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 Bangladesh with a large population of 156 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 130,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied young man with working experience to move to other part of Bangladesh away from his home district in large cities such as Dhaka where it would be difficult if not impossible for those local AL supporters to locate him.

9.  On 17 November 2017 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) against the decision of the Director, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 30 May 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the adjudicator for the Board.  On 30 August 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

10.  In its decision the Board accepted that the Applicant may have been threatened by those local AL supporters to join their party, but found no reliable evidence or acceptable reason to suggest that he had been specifically targeted given that he held no post or office in BNP, and that in any event with reasonable internal relocation within Bangladesh for him to safely move to other area away from his home district in large cities such as Sylhet where he had stayed before without incidents and without any fear or risk of being located by those local AL supporters that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

11.  On 8 October 2018 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)  misdirection in law in that the adjudicator misdirected himself on the law by taking into account that the Applicant had to have experienced torture in the past in order to establish substantial grounds to believe that there was a risk of torture in the future;

(2) procedural impropriety/unfairness in the adjudicator’s failure to carry out sufficient research and inquiry into COI and for failing to have regard to relevant and up-to-date COI in the consideration of his claim;

(3) irrationality in the adjudicator’s failure to take into account or putting proper weight on relevant COI and for cherry-picking and putting weight on irrelevant COI in the consideration of his claim;

(4) irrationality in the adjudicator’s failure to evaluate and make finding of fact as to whether a consistent pattern of gross and mass violation of human rights in Bangladesh;

(5) irrationality in the adjudicator’s failure to analyze and assess whether state protection exists in Bangladesh and misdirected himself as to the extended meaning of state protection;

(6) irrationality in the Board’s decision in taking into account and putting weight in irrelevant consideration or based on incorrect or inaccurate facts;

(7) procedural impropriety for failure to call for psychological and psychiatric evaluations and reports on the Applicant;

(8) procedural impropriety/unfairness in the adjudicator applying the incorrect standard of proof in his decision; and

(9) procedural impropriety/unfairness due to lack of or insufficient representation from the assigned duty lawyer for the Applicant resulting in unfair procedure.  

12.  These are however all just broad and vague assertions of the Applicant containing several pages of key words and phrases but without any particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they applied to his case or how the Board or the adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way did the adjudicator fail to take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or why it was necessary or relevant to call for psychological or psychiatric evaluations in his case, or in what way was his legal representation from his assigned lawyer insufficient.  None of these assertions were elaborated or presented with any particulars or specifics by the Applicant, and as such I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.

13.  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.

14.  The only other complaint which the Applicant appeared to have made with any elaboration was about the hearing bundle being provided to him only a few days before his appeal hearing before the Board which consisted of the Director’s skeleton submission and other documents all of which were in English and thereby given him insufficient time to prepare for his appeal.

15.  Even if it is true that the hearing bundle indeed came to him late as alleged, and the Applicant never provided any proof such as the date of the covering letter that accompanied the hearing bundle, I note that most of the documents including his NCF, records of his screening interviews and the Director’s decisions should be well familiar to the Applicant as they had earlier all been made available to him when he still had legal representation, whilst his NCF was completed on his own instructions with legal assistance, and that at his oral hearing he never raised any issue or requested the adjudicator for further time to enable him to better prepare for his appeal.  Accordingly I do not find anything amiss arising from the hearing bundle for the Applicant in his appeal before the Board.

16.  The fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decision that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Bangladesh, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.     

17.  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.

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