RE HUNAIN LATIF ZADHA

CACV 605/2020

[2022] HKCA 633

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 605 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 2089 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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

1.  On 14 September 2021, this court (Barma JA and G Lam JA) handed down a judgment dismissing the applicant’s appeal against the decision of DHCJ Bruno Chan given on 14 September 2020 refusing leave to the applicant to apply for judicial review. The applicant had sought to review the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board dismissing his appeal from the decision of the Director of Immigration rejecting his non‑refoulement claim.

2.  The facts and issues in the appeal, as well as the court’s reasons for dismissing it, are set out in our judgment.[1]  We will not repeat them here.

3.  The applicant subsequently applied, by a Notice of Motion filed on 15 September 2021, for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.  The applicant stated in the Notice of Motion that:

“1. The learned Judges were wrong as a matter of law for not having applied the principle of irrationality to the decision made by the Director of Immigration refusing my application for judicial review.

2. There is some error in law in my decision. The decision maker just relied on COL information any my previous facts, which were favour on rejecting my claim.

3. Actual life occur different situation then mentioned COL information. Officer and courts prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of the violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining.

4. The Judge did not apply the law properly.”

4.  The applicant failed to comply with Practice Direction 2.1 and lodged his written submissions late, on 4 October 2021.  In principle, the applicant was liable to be debarred from lodging any written submissions and the application be dealt with on paper on the basis of the materials already filed before the court.  However, given the relatively short delay in this case, we have nonetheless considered his written submissions, in which he referred to various authorities which established the well-known principles of, inter alia, the requirement of a high standard of fairness in a decision-maker’s determination of a torture claim.  However, there was no attempt by the applicant to elaborate on how these principles were misapplied or contravened in the processing of his non-refoulement claim.

5.  Having considered the applicant’s Notice of Motion and written submissions, we see no reason to depart from the usual practice of determining an application of this kind on the papers.  We have, therefore, determined the applicant’s application on the basis of the documents filed.

6.  The applicant identified a number of alleged errors in our judgment but he did not provide particulars of any of them.

7.  The matters stated by the applicant do not constitute grounds for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal. The applicant has failed to identify any question of great general or public importance for the Court of Final Appeal to determine, as required by section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484.  Nor is any such question apparent to us from the matters he has raised.

8.  Neither the Notice of Motion nor the written submissions identify with particularity any supposed error in our judgment and they raise no ground that is reasonably arguable before the Court of Final Appeal.

9.  We also do not see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb under section 22(1)(b).

10.  For these reasons, the Notice of Motion dated 15 September 2021 is dismissed.