RE NILA WATI PUJININGSIH

CAMP 87/2018

[2018] HKCA 753

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 87 OF 2018

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 316 of 2017)

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JUDGMENT

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

1.  On 29 August 2018, this Court (Chu and Barma JJA) handed down our judgment dismissing the applicant’s application for leave to appeal out of time against the decision of Li J given on 19 January 2018 refusing her leave to apply for judicial review.

2.  By a Notice of Motion dated 10 September 2018, the applicant applied for leave to appeal against our judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.  On 24 September 2018, the applicant also put in a written submission to support her application. 

3.  Pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1 on Applications for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal filed in the Court of Appeal in Civil Cases, we consider it is appropriate to deal with this application on paper without an oral hearing.

4.  Under section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap. 484, leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal may be granted 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 Court of Final Appeal for decision.

5.  In the Notice of Motion, the applicant stated that there is error in law in the decision against her.  It was said that the decision maker only relied on country of origin information (“COI”) and facts that were in favour of rejecting her claim and ignored overwhelming evidence of violence against minorities.  It was further said that the decision was biased and calculated to reject her claim.   

6.  In her written submission, the applicant stated that while in Hong Kong, she had given birth to a daughter who was born out of wedlock.  It was said that as she was not married to her daughter’s father and as the child was an illegitimate child, both she herself and her daughter would face various serious social discrimination and even danger to life if refouled to Indonesia.

7.  What the applicant stated in the Notice of Motion and written submission are case-specific and do not involve any question of great, general or public importance. 

8.  Further, as pointed out in our judgment (at [14]), the Board had taken into account the applicant’s status as a single unmarried mother and her daughter’s status as an illegitimate child, and further acknowledged that the COI indicated that they might experience discrimination.  However, the Board was not satisfied on the available evidence that any generalised harm they might encounter was sufficiently serious to constitute persecution under the Convention, or amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or placing them at risk of being arbitrarily deprived of their lives.  The potential difficulties and hardship facing the applicant and her daughter mentioned in the written submission had therefore been properly considered by the Board.  There is also no basis for the complaint that the Board was selective or biased in its approach to the COI.  The arguments advanced in the Notice of Motion and the written submission have no merits.

9.  There is also no other reason for submitting the proposed appeal to the Court of Final Appeal for decision. 

10.  In the circumstances, the condition for giving leave to appeal is not met.  Accordingly, we dismiss the Notice of Motion.