RE ZUBAIR MUHAMMAD

CAMP 76/2018

[2019] HKCA 313

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 76 OF 2018

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 385 OF 2017)

___________________________

__________________________

________________________

JUDGMENT

________________________

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

1.  On 30 August 2018, this Court (Chu and Barma JJA) handed down our judgment^[1] (“the Judgment”) refusing to give leave to the applicant to appeal out of time against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Woodcock (“the Judge”) given on 5 March 2018.

2.  On 22 January 2019, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion together with a supporting affirmation to apply for leave to appeal against our judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.  Despite the directions of the Registrar of Civil Appeal, the applicant did not provide any written submission to support his application. 

3.  Having considered the applicant’s notice of motion, we see no reason to depart from the usual practice of determining applications for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on paper without an oral hearing.  We have therefore proceeded to determine the applicant’s application on the basis of his notice of motion.

4.  Section 24(2) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap. 484 provides that the notice of motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal shall be issued within 28 days from the date of the judgment to be appealed from.  The applicant’s notice of motion was late by more than four months, which is a substantial delay. 

5.  The applicant said in his affirmation that he did not receive any letter from the Court, and requested an oral hearing to reconsider his case.  The affirmation, however, exhibited copies of this Court’s Judgment and the sealed order.  This would suggest that the applicant had received the Judgment and the order of this Court.  In our view, the applicant has not provided a satisfactory reason for his substantial delay in applying for leave to appeal to the Court of Final.      

6.  We turn next to consider the intended appeal.  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.

7.  The Notice of Motion stated:

“I would like to [inform] the Honourable Court that there is some error in law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on COI Information and my previous facts which were in favour while rejecting my claim. Actual life occur different situation then what is mentioned in COI Information. The Officer and [court] prefers to ignore the [overwhelming] of the evidence of this violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The Decision is [betray] a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.”

8.  What was stated in the Notice of Motion does not constitute grounds for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.  The applicant has not set out any question for submission to the Court of Final Appeal for consideration, let alone question of great general or public importance, as required by section 22(1)(b).  Further, the complaints made by the applicant in the Notice of Motion are vague and unparticularised, and are unarguable.         

9.  We also do not see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb under section 22(1)(b).

10.  As the statutory requirements for giving leave to appeal are not met, we dismiss the Notice of Motion.