PALASH GAZI v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD / NON-REFOULEMENT CLAIMS PETITION OFFICE

CACV 378/2020

[2021] HKCA 967

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 378 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 2855 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon S T Poon J (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  On 29 March 2021, this court (Hon Lam VP, Yau and S T Poon JJ) handed down a judgment dismissing the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge K W Lung (“the Judge”) on 5 August 2020 refusing leave to the applicant to apply for judicial review. The applicant had sought to review the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) dismissing his appeal from the decision of the Director of Immigration rejecting his non‑refoulement claim.

2.  The facts and issues in the appeal, as well as the court’s reasons for dismissing it, are set out in our judgment.^[1] We will not repeat them here.

3.  The applicant subsequently applied, by a Notice of Motion dated 16 April 2021, for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.  The applicant stated in the Notice of Motion that:

“I would like to infomr the Honourable Court that there is some error in law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on COL Information and my previous facts which were in favor while rejecting my claim. Acual life occur different situation then what is mentioned in COL Information. The Officer and cours prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of this violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The Decision is betrary a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.” [sic]

4.  The applicant lodged a written submission in support of the application on 28 April 2021.  Those submissions mostly consist of general statements of law quoted from case law, without identifying how they specifically relate to or apply in this case, and in large part are identical to his written submissions on the substantive appeal, which the Court had already addressed and rejected. 

5.  In paragraph 5 of the written submission, the applicant states that the Board acted in a procedurally unfair manner by failing to properly assess his credibility.  However, he did not provide any details or particulars in support of this argument.  In any event, this was an argument that should have been but was not raised in the application for leave to apply for judicial review, nor was it raised before us on the substantive appeal. 

6.  The applicant’s submissions fail to engage with the reasons given in our judgment dismissing his appeal and do not raise any discernible or arguable ground for disturbing our judgment.  The matters raised in the Notice of Motion and written submissions fail to pinpoint any specific error in our judgment or the judgment of the court below.

7.  The matters stated by the applicant do not constitute grounds for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal. The applicant has failed to identify any question of great general or public importance for the Court of Final Appeal to determine, as required by section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484.  Nor is any such question apparent to us from the matters he has raised.  

8.  We also do not see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb under section 22(1)(b).

9.  For these reasons, the Notice of Motion dated 16 April 2021 is dismissed.