BELARMINO, ARLENE ANGELES alias BELARMINO, ARLENE A alias ANGELES, ARLENE alias ANGELES alias BELARMINO, ARLENE v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 1296/2025

[2025] HKCFI 5344

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1296 OF 2025

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review
NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 47-year-old national of the Philippines who last arrived in Hong Kong on 21 December 2019 with permission to continue to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her last employment was prematurely terminated on 30 September 2022, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested on 20 May 2024 for which she was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 months, during which she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection to the Immigration Department on the basis that if she returned to the Philippines she would be harmed or killed by her husband over their domestic dispute.  

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Maraykit, San Juan, Batangas, the Philippines. After leaving school she married her husband and raised a family with 3 children in her home district.

3.  However in 2011 her relationship with her husband started to deteriorate due to their various domestic dispute during which her husband would easily lose his temper and made threats to harm or kill her.

4.  In order to avoid further conflicts with her husband the Applicant in 2015 started to come to Hong Kong to work as a foreign domestic helper, returning to her home in the Philippines only for holidays during which she would try to avoid her husband, but after her last employment was prematurely terminated in September 2022, she was afraid to return to the Philippines and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her subsequent arrest she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 25 February 2025 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).             

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 19 March 2025, 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”).

6.  In his decision, the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from her husband over their domestic disputes upon her return to the Philippines as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from him, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her husband to seriously harm or kill her other than some angry words or empty threats, that in any event it was a private domestic dispute between just the 2 of them only 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 the Philippines with a large population of 118 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 300,000 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 Cebu or Davao where it would be difficult if not impossible for her husband to locate her.

7.  On 28 March 2025, 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 2 May 2025 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board.  On 15 May 2025, her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.  In its decision[1], the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of threats from her husband but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her husband to seriously harm or kill her other than just angry words and empty threats, and that in any event it was a private domestic dispute between just the 2 of them only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to the Philippines as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for her to move safely to other parts of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located by her husband that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

9.  On 6 June 2025, 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 her supporting affirmation of the same date in which she just repeated her claim as before but without putting forth any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor did she request any oral hearing for her application. 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 of the Board’s decision.

10.  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.

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

12.  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.

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