ISMAWATI v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 2210/2023

[2026] HKCFI 3786

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2210 OF 2023

  Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

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

Following:

The application for leave to apply for Judicial Review be dismissed. 

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 41-year-old national of Indonesia who last arrived in Hong Kong on 29 October 2018 with permission to continue to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her last employment was prematurely terminated on 12 January 2022, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police some 9 months later on 19 October 2022. After she was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Indonesia she would be harmed or killed by her husband or his creditor for failing to repay her husband’s debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Cilacap, Central Java, Indonesia. After leaving school she worked as a domestic helper in Singapore until 2007 when she returned to Indonesia to marry her husband and then raised a family with a son in her husband’s home in Blitar, East Java.

3.  In 2008 she returned to work as a domestic helper in Brunei before coming to Hong Kong in 2014 to work as a foreign domestic helper.

4.  In December 2021 her husband was in debts to some loan shark in his home district which he required the Applicant to help to repay with her income earned in Hong Kong by remitting money to him in Indonesia, and which she did every month. 

5.  However, after her last employment was prematurely terminated in January 2022, she was unable to remit any money to her husband who then became furious and threatened to kill her, and so she was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her subsequent arrest by the police some 9 months later she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non‑refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 5 December 2022 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.             

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 21 December 2022 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 her 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”).

7.  In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from her husband or his creditor upon her return to Indonesia due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of either of them to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her husband’s debts, that in any event these were private domestic or monetary disputes between them 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”) shows that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Indonesia with a large population of 277 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 1.9 million 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 her home district in large cities such as Jakarta or Bali where it would be difficult if not impossible for her husband or his creditor to locate her.

8.  On 3 January 2023 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she attended an oral hearing on 20 July 2023 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 30 November 2023 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.  In its decision[1] the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted and rejected the credibility of her claim of fear of harm from her husband or his creditor over his debts that caused her to overstay in Hong Kong to seek protection, that her credibility was further undermined by her failure to raise her claim upon her first overstaying in Hong Kong until some 9 months later and only after her arrest by the police that it concluded that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

10.  On 11 December 2023 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in her supporting affirmation of the same date she put forward the following grounds for her intended challenge:

(1) That the Adjudicator did not consider her claim and just directly dismissed it without thinking about her life;

(2) That the Adjudicator unreasonably refused to allow her to submit her supporting documents without translation and also failed to give her time to arrange for their translation;

(3) That the interpreter was impatient and unhelpful to her during her hearing before the Board.

11.  These are however all just some bare and vague assertions of the Applicant without any necessary or relevant particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they apply to her case or how the Board or the Adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way was the decision unfair or unreasonable or that the Adjudicator had acted procedurally unfair or irrational, or what documents that the Adjudicator had refused to allow her to submit without translations, or in what was the interpreter impatient or unhelpful to her during her hearing before the Board. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.

12.  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.

13.  In the Applicant’s case, the Board rejected her claim for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in its decision with the benefit of hearing her in her oral evidence and her answers to questions raised of her claim, and in the absence of any error of law or procedural unfairness in her process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis to challenge the finding of the Board.

14.  Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been established by the Director in his decision that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim even if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of Indonesia, a decision also agreed and confirmed by the Board, there is simply no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.                

15.  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.

16.  Moreover, the Applicant has recently on 13 May 2026 in writing requested to withdraw her application as her issues in her home country have been resolved that she now wants to return to Indonesia as soon as possible.

17.  As I am for the given reasons not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and in view of her latest confirmation of no more issue for her to return to her home country, I accordingly dismiss her 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