TECSON JENELYN CABALQUINTO v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

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 38-year-old national of the Philippines who arrived in Hong Kong on 4 December 2018 with permission 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 2 March 2021, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested on 21 April 2021 when she then raised a non-refoulement claim to the Immigration Department for protection on the basis that if she returned to the Philippines she would be harmed or killed by her boyfriend over her affair with another man in Hong Kong.  

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Hinoba-an, Negros Occidental, the Philippines.  After leaving school she dated and cohabited with her boyfriend, but as he was a farmer with limited income, she therefore in 2018 came to Hong Kong to work as a foreign domestic helper to make her living.

3.  In December 2020 she met and formed a relationship with another man in Hong Kong, but later when her boyfriend in the Philippines came to know about it, he called the Applicant and threatened her that he would kill her when she returned to the Philippines. 

4.  As a result the Applicant became fearful for her life and cut off all further contact with her boyfriend, and when her last employment was prematurely terminated in March 2021, she was afraid to return to the Philippines and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her arrest she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 9 June 2021 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).             

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 23 June 2021 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”).

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 her boyfriend upon her return to the Philippines as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from him, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her boyfriend to seriously harm or kill her other than angry words and empty threats, that in any event it was a private relationship dispute between just the 2 of 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”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in the Philippines with a large population of 100 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 300,000 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 her home district in large cities such as Manila where it would be difficult if not impossible for her boyfriend to locate her.

7.  On 5 July 2021 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 17 December 2021 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board.  On 29 July 2022 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision[1] the Board found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her boyfriend to seriously harm or kill her other than some angry words and empty threats, and that in any event it was a private relationship dispute between just the 2 of them only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to the Philippines as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for her to move safely to other parts of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located by her boyfriend that her claim for non‑refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

9.  On 12 October 2022 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in her supporting affirmation she put forward the following grounds for her intended challenge:

(1)   That the Board reached the decision wrongly in assessing her non‑refoulement claim as the decision was not fair or reasonable as required by the Wednesbury test in failing to recognize that her life must be protected by the criminal law from extra-judicial killings that she may face if deported back to her home country;

(2)   That the Board failed to appreciate or place proper or sufficient weight or importance to the presence of State Acquiescence in her case which led to an unfair outcome of rejecting her claim without realizing that she was tortured at the behest of the state law enforcement agencies and politicians that the state would be rendered liable to the Applicant by cause of the state and its public officials failing to provide reasonable protection for its citizens under the duty of due diligence;

(3)   That the Adjudicator acted unreasonable and was procedurally unfair by placing too much reliance on COI but failed to take into account the Applicant’s personal background and experience in assessing his claim;

(4)   That the Board had listed relevant COI which supported the Applicant’s aversions that the police in her country would not be able to protect but failed to consider or give sufficient weight to such evidence and instead ruled otherwise against the Applicant’s case which was a clear case of unfair attitude shown by the Board which in itself is enough to render its decision void;

(5)   That the Board failed to attain the high standard of fairness required by the Wednesbury test in failing to take into account the Applicant’s argument that corruption and incompetency of the administration in the Applicant’s country is still a very serious problem as various human rights organizations had compiled reports that stated testament to the Applicant’s assertions;

(6)   That the Adjudicator was procedurally improper and unfair when assessing whether or not to accept the Applicant’s explanations and unreasonably required him to respond to questions that he was not in a position to offer any response;

(7)   That the Adjudicator made a ruling to dismiss the Applicant’s appeal based on findings which the Adjudicator ought to allow and thus the decision was irrational.           

10.  These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but 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 how did the Adjudicator fail to take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or what relevancy were state acquiescence or extra-judicial killings to the Applicant’s case or what evidence is there to suggest that the Applicant had ever been tortured by law enforcement agencies or politicians when on the factual basis of even her own case that it was a private relationship dispute between her and her boyfriend only without any official involvement or political element at all.  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 her intended challenge.

11.  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.

12.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been correctly established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in her claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of the Philippines, there is simply no justification to afford her with non‑refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.                

13.  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.

14.  Moreover, the Applicant recently on 22 December 2025 in writing requested to withdraw her application but without providing any explanation as to what has happened to her claimed risk in her home country.

15.  In the premises, 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, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss her 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