RE GURVINDER SINGH

CACV 368/2020

[2021] HKCA 1008

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 368 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 829 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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

1.  On 21 May 2021, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Cheung, Chu and Au JJA)  judgment of 7 May 2021 (“the Judgment”)  [2021] HKCA 659.  In the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge CP Pang dated 7 August 2020 dismissing his application for leave to apply for judicial review.

2.  The facts and issues in the appeal, as well as the Court’s reasons for dismissing it, are set out in the Judgment.  We will not repeat them here. After reviewing the Notice of Motion, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice to consider this application on paper pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1.

3.  Section 22(1)(b)  of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484)  provides that an appeal shall lie to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”)  at the discretion of this Court or the CFA 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 CFA for decision.

4.  In his Notice of Motion, the applicant raised the ground of appeal, which in summary, is that the Court wrongly assessed his country of origin information and that he asked the Court to protect his life.

5.  In his skeleton submissions of 4 June 2021 filed pursuant to the directions of Registrar of Civil Appeals, the applicant simply repeated his fear for life if deported to his home country.  He also submitted that the Torture Claims Appeal Board committed a procedural error because of its lack of understanding of the applicant’s case and thus this Court was wrong in its failure to identify such error.

6.  In our view, the applicant’s application is totally without merits.  In his Notice of Motion and written submissions, the applicant effectively argued that his country of origin information was not properly assessed, which is a mere regurgitation of the submission he made before this Court: see [14] of the Judgment.  We had explained our reasons for rejecting this argument at [21] - [22] of the Judgment.  The applicant simply failed to identify any specific errors in the Judgment.  These are therefore not viable grounds of appeal.

7.  In the circumstances and in any event, we also do not consider that there is any question of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for determination.

8.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA, and dismiss the applicant’s Notice of Motion.