RE DEEP SINGH

CACV 163/2018

[2018] HKCA 614

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 163 OF 2018

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 744/2017)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Cheung CJHC (giving the judgment of the court):

1.  By our judgment dated 1 August 2018 ([2018] HKCA 464 – Cheung CJHC and Chu JA), we dismissed the applicant’s appeal from the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Josiah Lam dated 11 May 2018 ([2018] HKCFI 1001) refusing leave to apply for judicial review. The applicant now seeks leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.

2.  In his notice of motion dated 9 August 2018, the applicant gave these grounds for seeking leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal:

“1. The judges should not have dismissed my claim because there were no particulars provided. I do not read or speak English and therefore I could only rely on assistance in submitting Court documents which are very technical to me. As a result, the grounds were in brief and they were meant to be elaborated in my first language in person given the language barriers.

2  Furthermore, I stand by what I said in my Notice of Appeal filed on 17 May 2018. The TCAB should not have assessed my BOR 2 claim without me lodging an appeal at TCAB regarding BOR 2, especially when I lacked language and legal assistance.  Even if the Board is going to end up rejecting my claim it does not make up for the fact that the procedure has been highly unfair.”

3.  In his written submissions dated 20 August 2018, the applicant essentially repeated the same grounds for seeking leave to appeal.

4.  Plainly, these grounds only concern case‑specific matters, but involve no issues of great general or public importance – the statutory criterion for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal: section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484).

5.  In any event, for the reasons we gave in our judgment, we do not consider the proposed grounds of appeal to be reasonably arguable.  We would add that the applicant did not request an oral hearing for his leave application before the deputy judge and therefore it was dealt with on paper. The applicant did not comply with the Registrar of Civil Appeals’ direction for lodging skeleton submissions, and was therefore deemed to have waived his right to have an oral hearing and elected to have his appeal before this court disposed of on paper.  Accordingly, no oral hearing was held before us.

6.  We also note that like all other documents the applicant filed with the court before, both the notice of motion and written submissions are written in English.

7.  There is no basis to grant leave on the “or otherwise” limb.

8.  For these reasons, we dismiss the application for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.