ISLAM MOHAMMAD SAIFUL v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 2830/2019

[2023] HKCFI 1923

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2830 OF 2019

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review
NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;            or
	consideration of the documents and oral submissions by the Applicant in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 30-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 1 December 2015 and was arrested by police on the same day. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain local supporters of the political party Awami League (“AL”) as he supported their rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”).

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in South Kamar Gaon Village, Kamargaon, Sreenagar, Munshiganj District, Bangladesh. After leaving school he assisted his father selling vegetable in his home village, and supported BNP regularly attended their local meetings and activities without holding any official post in the party, during which he and his fellow BNP supporters would frequently come into violent conflicts with the local AL supporters.

3.  In late 2014 after one such violent confrontation between the 2 rival supporters in his home village that 5 of his friends were killed, the Applicant became concerned for his own safety and tried to keep a low profile in his neighbourhood.

4.  One day in early 2015 when he saw a group AL supporters approaching towards his direction, the Applicant suspected that they were coming to harm him, and so he fled to hide in a friend’s place before fleeing to Dhaka, and on 26 November 2015 he departed Bangladesh for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and after his arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 4 October 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 14 November 2018 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all the applicable grounds including risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115 (“Torture Risk”), risk of his absolute or non-derogable rights under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383 (“HKBOR”) being violated including right to life under Article 2 (“BOR 2 Risk”), risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of HKBOR (“BOR 3 Risk”), and risk of persecution with reference to the non-refoulement principle under Article 33 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“Persecution Risk”).

6.  In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being harmed or killed by those local AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there was no evidence or reasons for them to specifically target the Applicant or to have any adverse interest in him given that he was just an ordinary BNP supporter without ever holding any official post in the party, that in any event in the absence of any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant if resorted to, and that reliable and objective Country of Origin Information (“COI”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Bangladesh with a large population of 157 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 140,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Dhaka where it would be difficult if not impossible for those local AL supporters to locate him.

7.  On 27 November 2018 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 28 May 2019 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 12 September 2019 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision the Board found such serious inconsistencies and contradictions in the Applicant’s evidence which bore almost no relationship to what he had earlier stated to the Director and that which directly contradicted the key element of his original account of any political involvement in BNP, and which he was unable to explain or resolve in his evidence before the Board that it determined that his claim could not be given any credence whatsoever, and concluded that his non-refoulement claim for protection failed on all the applicable grounds.

9.  On 25 September 2019 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he just stated that the decision was biased and irrelevant, and was based on biased information which were inapplicable or inaccurate but without providing any details or particulars or elaboration as to how it was so, nor was he able to do so at the hearing of his application. As such and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis for his intended challenge.

10.  As has been repeatedly emphasized by the Court of Appeal, judicial review does not operate as a rehearing of a non-refoulement claim when the proper occasion for the Applicant to present and articulate his claim is in the screening process and interview before the Immigration Department and in the process before the Board where the evaluation of the risk of harm is primarily a matter for the Director and the Board as they are entitled to make such evaluation based on the evidence available to them that the court will not usurp their role as primary decision makers in the absence of any legal error or procedural unfairness or irrationality in their decisions being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, as judicial review is not an avenue for revisiting the assessment by them in the hope that the court may consider the matter afresh: Re Lakhwinder Singh [2018] HKCA 246; Re Daljit Singh [2018] HKCA 328; Re Mudannayakalage Chaminda Pushpa Kumara [2018] HKCA 400; and Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524.

11.  In the Applicant’s case, the Board rejected his claim essentially on its adverse finding on his credibility for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in paragraphs 22 – 32 of its decision with the benefit of hearing him in his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim, and in the absence of any error of law or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis to challenge the finding of the Board.

12.  Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been established by the Director in his decision that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Bangladesh, a decision also confirmed by the Board, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

13.  In the premises and having considered the decisions of both the Director and the Board with rigorous examination and anxious scrutiny, I do not find any error of law or procedural unfairness in either of them, nor any failure on their part to apply high standards of fairness in their consideration and assessment of the Applicant’s claim.

14.  For these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and accordingly I refuse his leave application.

Where leave to apply has been granted, Applicants and their legal advisers are reminded of their obligation to reconsider the merits of their application in the light of the Respondent’s evidence

Form CALL-1