RE ALTAF SAQIB

CACV 140/2020

[2021] HKCA 853

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 140 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 931 OF 2017)

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J U D G M E N T

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

1.  On 6 January 2021, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Cheung and Au JJA) judgment of 23 December 2020 (“the Judgment”) [2020] HKCA 1058. In the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Campbell-Moffat J dated 19 May 2020, refusing him leave to apply for judicial review.

2.  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.  After reviewing the Notice of Motion, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice to consider this application on paper pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1.

3.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484) provides that an appeal shall lie to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) at the discretion of this Court or the CFA 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 CFA for decision.

4.  In his Notice of Motion, the applicant raised the following grounds of appeal:

“I would like to inform Court of Final Appeal. There is some error in law in my decision maker just relied on col information and my previous facts which were favor on reject my claim. Actual life occur different situation them mentioned col information. Officer and court prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of the violence toward a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly calcute to reject my claim.” [sic]

5.  In his skeleton submissions of 18 January 2021 filed pursuant to the Court’s directions, the applicant submits that (a) the decision makers did not determine his case fairly; (b) there should have been a proper and fair mechanism for unrepresented litigant; (c) he did not have legal and language assistance; (d) he was not notified of his rights and was not given an opportunity to be heard; (e) the authorities were discriminatory against the non-refoulement claimants.

6.  The applicant was not given oral hearing before this Court or the court below were well justified for the reasons set out at [4] and [12] of the Judgment for his failure to lodge a written submission before us and to request an oral hearing before the court below. 

7.  Further, in the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal because (a) none of his grounds were against the judge and (b) in any event, those grounds were new and not canvased before the judge and thus would not be entertained: [17] of the Judgment.

8.  None of the grounds of appeal raised by the applicant pinpointed any specific errors in the Judgment.  These are therefore not viable grounds of appeal.

9.  In any event, we also do not consider that there is any question of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for determination.

10.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA, and dismiss the applicant’s Notice of Motion.