RE SWARANJIT KAUR

HCAL 488/2017

[2018] HKCFI 2183

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST

NO 488 OF 2017

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D E C I S I O N

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1.  On 31 August 2018 I refused to extend time for the applicant’s leave application for judicial review of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board for dismissing her appeal/petition of her non-refoulement claim upon finding that she had no valid explanation for her delay of almost three months with her application, and that there was no merit in any of her proposed grounds for her intended challenge which may constitute a good reason for extending time to her late application. The applicant now wishes to seek leave to appeal against the decision.

2.  In MI v Permanent Secretary for Security [2018] HKCA 419, it was held that in judicial review cases brought outside the three-month time limit stipulated under Order 53, rule 4(1) of the Rules of the High Court, Cap 4A where the judge refused to extend time, an applicant must obtain leave under section 14AA of the said Ordinance before an appeal can be brought. 

3.  Accordingly on 7 September 2018 the applicant issued her summons now before me for leave to appeal against my said decision, and in her supporting affirmation of the same date she merely deposed that:

“ I cannot go back to my country at this moment. Please allow me to make appeal against the decision of judicial review.”

4.  The applicant is an Indian national who came to Hong Kong in April 2013 as a visitor and since overstayed, and the basis of her non-‌refoulement claim was that upon return to India she would be harmed or killed by her father’s creditor for refusing to marry his son in exchange for the discharge of her father’s debt. 

5.  As set out in my judgment, her claim was rejected by the Director of Immigration on the basis, inter alia,  that the risk of harm to her was a localized one and that it was not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of India and hence there was no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection, while in her subsequent appeal the Board upon hearing her in evidence went further to conclude that her evidence relating to her father’s debt, the proposal for marrying her to his creditor’s son and the threats made by his creditor to her in connection with the debt were not credible, and found that she had failed to establish a genuine or substantial risk of being subjected to harm, or a real risk to her life or risk of torture or persecution.

6.  In her application now before me the applicant is merely repeating her claim as before without putting forward any ground with any prospect of success in her intended appeal.  Her application is totally without merit, and accordingly I refuse her application for leave to appeal.