RE BOOTA MUHAMMAD

CACV 267/2019

[2020] HKCA 474

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 267 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 1664 OF 2018)

_______________

_______________

_______________

J U D G M E N T

_______________

Hon Au JA (giving judgment of the court):

1.  By a judgment dated 18 October 2019 ([2019] HKCA 1112) (“the Judgment”), this court (Hon Barma, Zervos and Au JJA) dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Woodcock dated 13 June 2019 ([2019] HKCFI 781), refusing leave to apply for judicial review. 

2.  The intended judicial review is against the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non-Refoulement Claims Petition Office dated 6 August 2018 and the decisions of the Director of Immigration dated 20 October 2015 and 13 December 2016 rejecting the applicant’s non-refoulement claim.

3.  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.

4.  By a Notice of Motion dated 23 October 2019, the applicant applied for leave to appeal against the Judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.

5.  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. 

6.  In the Notice of Motion, the applicant set out the following:

“This is my humble request in front of you that please allow me to process further my application so that I can save my life. I cant go back to my country at this moment. Please help me to stay here until my problem will be solved.” [sic]

7.  The applicant was directed by Master Au-Yeung on 24 October 2019 that written submissions should be lodged on or before 6 November 2019. The applicant lodged his written submissions in compliance with the directions. In his written submissions, he repeated his personal background and his claim and simply stated that he was not satisfied with all the decisions.  Other than that, he did not identify any errors in the Judgment.

8.  We have duly considered the applicant’s Notice of Motion and written submissions.  Pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1, we did not find any exceptional circumstance in this application to deviate from the usual practice and thus proceeded to consider this application on papers without any oral hearing.

9.  In our view, this application has no merits.

10.  The applicant merely expressed dissatisfaction with the Judgment in the Notice of Motion and written submissions without identifying any errors in the Judgment.  These are not viable grounds of appeal.

11.  In any event, the applicant failed to identify in the Notice of Motion or the written submissions any question of great general or public importance that ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision.  Nor do we see any basis to grant leave on the “otherwise” limb.

12.  In the premises, the statutory criteria for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal under section 22(1)(b) of the Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484) are not met.  Accordingly, we refuse to give the applicant leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal and dismiss his Notice of Motion.