RE IMPERIAL SHERYLL BARRIGA

CACV 226/2020

[2021] HKCA 842

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 226 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 1564 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Au JA (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  On 8 February 2021, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Au JA and G Lam J) judgment of 27 January 2021 (“the Judgment”) [2021] HKCA 111.  In the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Campbell-Moffat J dated 23 June 2020, refusing her leave to apply for judicial review.

2.  The facts and issues in the appeal, as well as the Court’s reasons for dismissing it, are set out in the Judgment.  We will not repeat them here.  After reviewing the Notice of Motion, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice to consider this application on paper pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1.

3.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484) provides that an appeal shall lie to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) at the discretion of this Court or the CFA if the question involved in the appeal is one which, by reason of its great general or public importance, or otherwise, ought to be submitted to the CFA for decision.

4.  In her Notice of Motion, the applicant raised the following grounds of appeal:

“Dear Sir Madam, I am the applicant herein. In the order give to the court there is some error in my decision Decision maker just just relied on COL Information and my previous facts which were favor on reject my claim. Actual life occur different situation the mentioned COL Information. Immigration Officer and Hong Kong High Courts prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of the 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 calculate to reject my claims. Also I am requested to court I don’t have legal represented could you please provide me and consider my real situation and safe my life as a human being. Bundle of thanks.” [sic]

5.  In her written submissions of 17 February 2021, she quoted some passages from Secretary for Security v Sakthevel Prabakar [2005] 1 HKLRD 289 on the principle of high standard of fairness.  She argued that the adjudicator committed procedural unfairness by not assessing her credibility properly.  She also cited some passages on the principle of Wednesbury unreasonableness.  However, she did not elaborate on how these would assist her present application.

6.  In our view, the applicant’s application is totally without merits.  The arguments in her Notice of Motion and written submissions simply rehashed those advanced before but rejected by us: see [11] - [12] and [20] - [22] of the Judgment.  The applicant had failed to identify any specific errors in the Judgment.  These are not viable grounds of appeal against the Judgment.

7.  In the circumstances and in any event, we also do not consider that there is any question of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for determination.

8.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA, and dismiss the applicant’s Notice of Motion.