莊裕安 v. 終審法院 AND ANOTHER

HCAL 112/2021

[2021] HKCFI 988

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 112 OF 2021

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D E C I S I O N

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1.  In his Form 86 dated 1 February 2021, the Applicant lists a host of matters as being the “judgment, order, decision or other proceeding in respect of which relief is sought”, including judgments, decisions or directions made or given by the Court of Final Appeal in FAMV 98/2018 and the Court of Appeal in CACV 552/2019, various provisions of the PRC Constitution, Basic Law and Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Rules, as well as some letters written by the Applicant to the Court of Final Appeal.

2.  The relief that the Applicant is seeking by the present application is that this court should forthwith allow his appeals in CACV 216/2019, CACV 217/2019 and CACV 552/2019 and award compensation to him, in view of his contention that the Court of Final Appeal, including the Appeal Committee, cannot be lawfully or properly constituted to hear his appeals or potential appeals arising from the aforesaid appeals because the Cheung CJ, Ribeiro and Fok PJJ, and Tang and Chan NPJJ ought to recuse themselves from hearing his cases.

3.  As a matter of fact, the Court of Appeal dismissed:

(1)  the Applicant’s appeals in CACV 216/2019 and CACV 217/2019 on 26 March 2020, and his applications for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on 24 July 2020; and

(2)  the Applicant’s appeal in CACV 552/2019 on 27 November 2020, and his application for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on 29 January 2021.

4.  As far as this court is concerned, the Applicant’s appeals in CACV 216/2019, CACV 217/2019 and CACV 552/2019 have all been concluded.  In any event, it is plain that the Court of First Instance has no power, whether in an application for judicial review or some other form of proceedings, to allow or otherwise make any rulings on those appeals.

5.  The intended application for judicial review is misconceived and amounts to an abuse of process. The application for leave to apply for judicial review is therefore dismissed.

6.  There is one other matter that I should mention.  In the Form 86, the Applicant requests that the present application should be heard by a foreign judge or a Chinese judge who has not previously handled CACV 185/2017, CACV 216/2019, CACV 217/2019, CACV 552/2019 and HCAL 765/2020.  In particular, the Applicant has named a large number of judges (including the present one) who have handled and rejected his previous applications and contended that they should not be hearing the present application.  In his oral submissions, the Applicant also contends that because the present application concerns the former Chief Justice Ma, it should not be heard by any judge who was formerly a member of the same chambers of the former Chief Justice.  The fact that a judge has previously ruled against an applicant does not disqualify him from hearing another case brought by the same applicant.  Equally, the mere fact that a judge and a person who may in some way be said to be connected with a case were formerly members of the same set of chambers does not disqualify the judge from hearing the case.  The Applicant’s request amounts to forum shopping and must be rejected.