RE SULTANA REBAKA

CACV 448/2019

[2020] HKCA 567

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 448 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 1146/2018)

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JUDGMENT

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Hon Lam VP (giving the Judgment of the Court):

Introduction

1.  On 2 June 2020, the Applicant applied by Notice of Motion for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Lam VP and M Ng J) judgment of 23 April 2020.  In that judgment we dismissed the Applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge K W Lung on 19 September 2019 refusing leave to apply for judicial review. 

2.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484 (“the Ordinance”), 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.

3.  Pursuant to section 24(2) of the Ordinance an appellant has 28 days from the date of the judgment to seek leave to appeal to the CFA.  In the present case, the time for the Applicant to seek leave to appeal against our judgment of 23 April 2020 expired on 21 May 2020.

4.  As the Applicant did not apply for leave to appeal to the CFA within time, good and sufficient ground must be shown by the Applicant before the court will exercise its discretion to grant an extension of time: see Section 24(5) of the Ordinance.  See also: Full Wisdom Holdings Ltd v Traffic Stream Infrastructure Co Ltd CACV 266/2003, 27 July 2004; Bowlstar (HK) Ltd v Ho Kwai Po CACV 156/2006, 10 July 2007; Elijah Saatori v Raffles Medical Group CACV 109/2008, 11 March 2009; and Tsit Wing (Hong Kong) Company Limited & Others v TWG Tea Company Pte Ltd & Another (unreported) CACV 191/2013, 29 January 2015.

5.  In the present case, the Applicant’s Notice of Motion was late by 12 days.  The delay is not very substantial though she has not provided any explanation for the delay.

6.  The Applicant set out the following grounds for leave to appeal in her Notice of Motion for leave to appeal to the CFA:

“ I would like to appeal against the previous court’s decision on my case. While judicial review is not to provide a further avenue of appeal, it does need to re-examine the examination procedure of the claim and in this case, error of judgment, or negligence should be considered. Problem of translation which led to misjudgment of my case and the lack of understanding of context caused rejection of my case.”

7.  Notwithstanding the acknowledgment by the Applicant on 2 June 2020 of the requirement under Practice Direction 2.1 and the direction of the Registrar of Civil Appeals of 4 June 2020 that submissions be lodged by 16 June 2020, as of that date she had not lodged any written submissions as directed under paragraph 3 of the Practice Direction.  

8.  Subsequently on 26 June 2020 the Applicant lodged brief written submissions as follows:

“ I have political problem in my country. If I return my enemy must be kill me. They are very power full. I will tell every points to the Court of Final Appeal. I do not want to die.

So please send my case to the Court of Final Appeal.”

9.  At the hearing of the appeal before this Court on 16 April 2020, the proceedings were interpreted by a court interpreter in the Applicant’s language, Bengali.  We cannot see any basis for suggesting in the Notice of Motion that there was a problem of translation in the appeal which led to misjudgment.  As for translation at other stages of the process, we have dealt with the same at [22] of our judgment.

10.  The matters raised in the Notice of Motion and written submissions in support are vague and lack particulars.  They do not pinpoint any specific error in this Court’s judgment of 23 April 2020.  Moreover, the issues arising in this case are fact-sensitive ones relating to the specific circumstances of the case, as such we do not consider that any are questions of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for decision. 

11.  In any event, the Applicant’s grounds for leave to appeal to the CFA failed to engage with this Court’s reasons for the dismissal of the appeal and are patently unarguable. 

12.  For these reasons, we refuse to extend time for the Applicant to apply for leave to appeal to the CFA and dismiss her application for leave to appeal to the CFA accordingly.