NANING SETYOWATI v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 126/2022

[2023] HKCFI 1601

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO. 126 OF 2022

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

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

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;            or
	consideration of the documents and the Applicant being absent in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 41-year-old national of Indonesia who last arrived in Hong Kong on 22 June 2019 with permission to continue to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract on 22 June 2021 or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her last employment was prematurely terminated on 10 June 2020, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and on 10 September 2020 she surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if she returned to Indonesia she would be harmed or killed by her mother’s creditor over her unpaid debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Kediri, Jatim, Indonesia. After leaving school she married her husband whom she later divorced, whereupon she then returned to live with her parents.

3.  In order to make her living, the Applicant in 2007 started to come to Hong Kong to work as a foreign domestic helper, returning to her home in Indonesia only during holidays.

4.  In December 2019 her father suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with a heart disease which required medical treatments, for which her mother borrowed a loan from a local money-lender repayable by monthly instalments with contributions from the Applicant and her brother.

5.  However, after her last employment was terminated in June 2020 that the Applicant was unable to remit money to her mother in Indonesia for her loan repayment, and as a result her mother’s creditor sent men to threaten to kill her mother and her family, and so the Applicant was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and subsequently raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 25 May 2021 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 26 August 2021 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 her 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”).

7.  In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that there will be any real and substantial risk of her being harmed or killed by her mother’s creditor and followers over the outstanding loan upon her return to Indonesia as low due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her mother and family to repay the loan, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between them without 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”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Indonesia with a large population of 267 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 1.8 million 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 her home district in large cities such as Jakarta where it would be difficult if not impossible for her mother’s creditor to locate her.

8.  On 6 September 2021 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she attended an oral hearing on 11 January 2022 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 27 January 2022 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.  In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of risk of harm from her mother’s creditor over her unpaid debts but found no real intention of the creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to put pressure on her family to repay the loan, and that in any even tit was a private monetary dispute between them without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Indonesia as well as reasonable internal relocation for her to move safely to other areas of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.  On 8 February 2022 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in her Form or in her supporting affirmation of the same date to which she just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forward any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor did she attend the hearing of her application without any explanation. As such and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in her 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 her intended challenge.

11.  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.

12.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decision that the risk of harm in her claim is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of Indonesia, there is simply no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

13.  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.

14.  For these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and accordingly I refuse her leave 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