YUEN OI YEE LISA v. ROBERT LAM

cacv 207/2008

in the high court of the

hong kong special administrative region

court of appeal

civil appeal no. 207 of 2008

(on appeal from HCA NO. 2742 of 2006)

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D E C I S I O N

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1.  This is an application by Miss Lisa Yuen Oi-yee.  It is entitled in CACV 207 of 2008 and it relates to High Court Action 2742 of 2006.

2.  Miss Yuen has had a number of actions centred around the defendant in this case and also his sister and, in respect of other matters as well which I need not deal with at the moment.  There have been many applications and there have been a number of cases.  At the root of it, Miss Yuen has been made bankrupt but those actions, which are still going on, have been transferred to the District Court.  Miss Yuen is unhappy about that but there is nothing that we see that we should do about it. 

3.  Last year in other actions which were CACV 325 of 2006 and CACV 436 of 2006 - that related to an appeal from High Court Actions 509 of 2004 and 96 of 2005 - I made the following order.  The order commenced:

“Upon reading the notice of appeal filed on 14 September 2006 on behalf of the plaintiff...”

and that is Miss Lisa Yuen

“...by way of appeal of the order of the Honourable Mr Justice Lam made on 15 August 2006 whereby it was ordered that the intended judicial review is within the scope of the RPO of 28 December 2005 and that the RPO leave is refused because the intended proceedings have no merit, there is no arguable basis for challenging the decision of the Administrative Appeals Board.”

4.  The material part of the order was, first, that the appeal be dismissed; and:

“2.        The plaintiff shall henceforth not be permitted to bring any appeal in respect of any decision of a judge at First Instance pursuant to, relating to or in connection with a restricted application order, or the restricted proceedings order unless, at the same time as giving the decision in question, the judge has granted the plaintiff leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal;

3.         Unless such leave to appeal is given, the judge’s decision, including his refusal to grant leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal, shall be final.”

5.  In making that order, I repeated, word for word, what was in subparagraphs (a) and (b) of paragraph 16 of the practice direction at 11.3.  The opening words of that paragraph 16 are headed “Power of Court of Appeal to Restrict Abuse of Appellate Process”.

“Where on the hearing of an appeal, the Court of Appeal is satisfied that an RAO litigant or RPO litigant has abused the appellate process by bringing an appeal or appeals, whether against the original restrictive order, or against the subsequent refusal of an RAO or RPO leave application made pursuant to such restrictive order, the Court of Appeal may make an order restricting future appeals and direct...”

and then there comes the material part which is in the same words as the order which I made. 

6.  The effect of the order that I made is quite simply this:  that Miss Yuen should not bring any appeals at all, whether in this case or any other case except with leave of a judge who made that order against which it is intended to bring an appeal. 

7.  That is my understanding of the order and there seems to have been some confusion about it but, in any event, if I am wrong about my understanding, I am afraid somebody else is going to have to correct it because that is my understanding and my understanding is that there should be no further appeals unless the judge below gives specific leave to bring an appeal. 

8.  Miss Yuen has brought this application on this occasion because appeals have been allowed to be brought but, in my view, that is wrong.  I made that order on 14 February 2007 and, as far as I am concerned, it remains in force.