RE BERNADOS JENNIFER PITALLO

CACV 251/2021

[2021] HKCA 1828

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 251 OF 2021

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 3010 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon G Lam JA (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  The applicant is a Philippine national whose non-refoulement claim was rejected by the Director of Immigration and the Torture Claims Appeal Board/adjudicator of the Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office. Her application for leave for judicial review of the Board’s decision was rejected by Deputy High Court Judge To,[1] and his appeal against that decision was dismissed by this Court on 7 October 2021.[2]

2.  The relevant facts and procedural history and the reasons for dismissing the appeal have been set out in our previous judgment and will not be repeated here.

3.  The applicant now seeks, by Notice of Motion dated 18 October 2021, leave to appeal further to the Court of Final Appeal.  In the Notice of Motion, the applicant stated:

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

4.  Pursuant to the directions of the Registrar of Civil Appeals under Practice Direction 2.1, this application will be dealt with on paper without an oral hearing.

5.  In her written submissions of 1 November 2021, the applicant substantially reiterated her previous arguments made in the appeal to this Court, which consisted of general statements of law without any apparent relation to her case and a bald assertion that the Board unfairly failed to properly assess her credibility.  We had already addressed and rejected those arguments in our judgment of 7 October 2021.

6.  Having considered the materials available, we are satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect in the intended appeal or any question involved which, by reason of its great general or public importance, ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision, as required by section 22(1)(b)  of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484).  Nor do we see any reason why the applicant should, for some other reason, be allowed to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.

7.  The Notice of Motion is therefore dismissed.