SHERIFF ABDULLAH J v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 911/2025

[2026] HKCFI 3639

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 911 OF 2025

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

The application for leave to apply for Judicial Review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 34-year-old national of Liberia who arrived in Hong Kong on 9 July 2023 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 23 July 2023 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and on the following day on 24 July 2023 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Liberia he would be harmed or killed by the former enemies of his father due to political issues.  He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Barkedu, Quardu Gboni District, Lofa County, Liberia.  After leaving university with a Bachelor of Arts in English he ran his own garments shop in capital Monrovia to make his living.

3.  His father used to be a general in the Liberian army and the head of the presidential guards for the former President Doe, but after President Doe was assassinated in a coup in 1990 led by a rebel leader Charles Taylor and which escalated into a civil war for the next several years, during which the Applicant’s father together with some members of the former regime fled to neighboring Guinea to form a group known as Liberians United for Reconstruction and Development (“LURD”) and led insurgencies against the regime and presidency of Charles Taylor which then exploded into a second civil war in 1998 and ended in 2003 with the resignation of President Taylor and severe civilian casualties all over the country.

4.  After the civil war the Applicant’s father returned to his family in Lofa when the Applicant was still a school kid, and engaged in some private business, during which his father had received threats from some members of the former regime in particularly a former rebel leader PJ as well as other people who blamed him for the civil war, and when the Applicant subsequently entered university, he also received threats from unknown persons due to his father’s past political history, and had had to constantly change his residency to avoid such threats.

5.  One day in 2017 the Applicant heard that some men had come to the university looking for him, and fearing for his own safety the Applicant got on his car to drive away, but while in a highway near a hill, his car was struck from behind by another car that it overturned and that the Applicant lost consciousness and was hospitalized, and of which he suspected was an attempt by men sent by PJ to kill him due to their hate against his father who later in 2018 passed away inside a car also under suspicious circumstances.

6.  Upon graduating from university the Applicant started his own garment business, and in 2023 undertook various flights to Guinea and China purchasing goods for his shop, and on 9 July 2023 when he arrived in Hong Kong to look for merchandise, he later received a phone call from his neighbour warning him that some men armed with automatic weapons had come to his home in Liberia looking for him and shouting threats to kill him, and whom the Applicant suspected were sent by PJ to kill him, and so he was afraid to return to Liberia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and subsequently raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 23 November 2023 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).             

7.  By a Notice of Decision dated 31 January 2024 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”).

8.  In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found inconsistencies and discrepancies in the information provided by him for his alleged risks of harm from PJ or others that his credibility is considered seriously in doubt, that even if his account of events prior to his departure of Liberia were true that the level of risk of harm from his perceived enemies upon his return to Liberia is assessed as low due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no reliable evidence that those alleged incidents that occurred in Liberia were caused by PJ and his associates against him other than his own suspicions and speculations, 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”) shows that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Liberia with a large population of 5.5 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 96,000 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 where it would be difficult if not impossible for PJ or his associates to locate him.

9.  On 14 February 2024 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 30 October 2024 with his lawyer from DLS before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board and with submissions made on his behalf by his lawyer.  On 14 March 2025 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.  In its decision[1] the Board accepted the Applicant’s evidence about his father’s actions and involvements in the previous regime of Liberia and the subsequent civil wars as asserted but found no reliable evidence of any intention of anyone from the previous regime or any rebel leader by the name of PJ in Liberia to specifically target his father for harm, let alone any intention of anyone to harm or kill the Applicant as the son other than the Applicant’s own groundless suspicions and speculations or that he had fabricated such claims for the purpose of advancing a favorable migration purpose, and concluded that the Applicant had failed to establish any risk of harm or ill-treatment or torture that he may face from anyone upon his return to Liberia that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

11.  On 15 April 2025 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 or his supporting affirmation of the same date to which he just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge.  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 of the Board’s decision.

12.  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.

13.  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 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.

14.  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 even if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Liberia, a decision also agreed and 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.                

15.  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.

16.  It is also of note that the Applicant on 8 April 2026 filed an affirmation requesting to withdraw his application as he has been granted his dependent visa but without providing any documentary evidence in support.

17.  As I am for the given reasons not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss his 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