BUI THI THANH THUY v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 1745/2024

[2025] HKCFI 2996

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1745 OF 2024

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 be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 63-year-old national of Vietnam who had repeatedly entered Hong Kong illegally in the past did so again sometime in 2020 and was arrested by police on 21 July 2020. After she was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Vietnam she would be harmed or killed by her creditor over her unpaid debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Hai Phong City, Vietnam. After leaving school she worked in various manual jobs, married her husband and raise d a family with 2 children in her home district.

3.  In 2003 in order to meet her husband’s medical expenses for lung cancer, the Applicant borrowed a loan from a local money-lender repayable by monthly instalments with interest.

4.  After her husband passed away later in 2003, and despite working several jobs and taking several trips to Hong Kong to seek employments, by 2005 the Applicant started to default with her loan repayments, and after being threatened by men sent by her creditor, the Applicant fled to Ho Chi Minh City before eventually returning to Hai Phong City to hide in places of various relatives to avoid her creditor, and in 2019 she again departed Vietnam for China, and from there she sneaked into Hong Kong again, and upon her arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 11 February 2021 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 26 March 2021 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 her 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 assessed the level of risk of harm from her creditor and followers upon her return to Vietnam as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only without 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 Vietnam with a large population of 102 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 330,000 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 her home district in large cities such as Hanoi where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

7.  The Applicant then lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she subsequently attended 2 oral hearings on 20 and 27 June 2024 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 10 July 2024, her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of harm from her creditor over her unpaid debts but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Vietnam as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for her to move safely to other parts of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located by her creditor that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.  On 3 October 2024 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward various grounds for her intended challenge, of which she confirmed at the hearing as follows:

(1)  That the Board reached the decision wrongly in assessing her non-refoulement claim as the decision was not fair or reasonable as required by the Wednesbury test in failing to recognize that her life must be protected by the criminal law from killings that she may face if deported back to her home country;

(2)  That the Board failed to appreciate or place proper or sufficient weight or importance to the presence of State Acquiescence in her case which led to an unfair outcome of rejecting her claim;

(3)  That the Adjudicator acted unreasonable and was procedurally unfair by placing too much reliance on COI but failed to take into account the Applicant’s personal background and experience in assessing her claim;

(4)  That the Board had listed relevant COI which supported the Applicant’s aversions that the police in his country would not be able to protect but failed to consider or give sufficient weight to such evidence and instead ruled otherwise against the Applicant’s case which was a clear case of unfair attitude shown by the Board which in itself is enough to render its decision void;

(5)  That the Board failed to attain the high standard of fairness required by the Wednesbury test in failing to take into account the Applicant’s argument that corruption and incompetency of the administration in the Applicant’s country is still a very serious problem as various human rights organizations had compiled reports that stated testament to the Applicant’s assertions;

(6)  That the Adjudicator was procedurally improper and unfair when assessing whether or not to accept the Applicant’s explanations and unreasonably required her to respond to questions that she was not in a position to offer any response;

(7)  That the Adjudicator made a ruling to dismiss the Applicant’s appeal based on findings which the Adjudicator ought to allow and thus the decision was irrational.

10.  These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any relevant or necessary particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they apply to her case or how the Board or the Adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way was the decision unfair or unreasonable or that the Adjudicator had acted procedurally unfair or irrational, or how did the Adjudicator fail to take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or what relevancy were state acquiescence to the Applicant’s case when on the factual basis of even her own case that it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only without any official involvement or political element at all. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for her intended challenge.

11.  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.

12.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has also been established by the Director in his decision that the risk of harm in her claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of Vietnam, a decision also agreed and confirmed by the Board, there is simply no justification to afford her 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 all these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss her 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