RE AMIN RUHUL

CACV 422/2018

[2019] HKCA 310

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO.422 OF 2018

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 993 OF 2017)

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JUDGMENT

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Hon Yeung Ag CJHC (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  By a judgment dated 18 January 2019 ([2019] HKCA 16), this Court (Yeung Acting CJHC and Poon JA) dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan dated 24 August 2018 refusing to grant leave to him to apply for judicial review.  The intended judicial review was against the decisions of the Director of Immigration dated 4 May 2016 and 12 January 2017 and the decision of Torture Claims Appeal Board dated 24 October 2017.  The applicant now seeks leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.

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.

3.  By a notice of motion dated 23 January 2019, the applicant applied for leave to appeal against our judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.

4.  In the Notice of Motion, the applicant set out the following grounds:

“I would like to inform the Honourable Court that there is some error in law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on COI (Country of Origin Information) information and my previous facts which were in favour while rejecting my claim. Actual life occurs different situation then what is mentioned in COI information. The Officer and Courts prefer to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of this violence toward minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The Decision is betray (sic) bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.”

5.  Pursuant to the direction given by Master Au-Yeung on 24 January 2019, the applicant should lodge his written submissions with the court in support of the Notice of Motion on or before 8 February 2019.  The applicant failed to lodge his written submissions.  Under the directions, the applicant was debarred from lodging any further written submissions and the Notice of Motion was to be dealt with on the basis of the materials already filed before the court. 

6.  We have duly considered the applicant’s notice of motion.  Pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1, this application is processed on papers without any oral hearing.

7.  Under section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484, leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal may be granted 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 Court of Final Appeal for decision.  The grounds of appeal contained in the Notice of Motion were similar to grounds as set out in Form 86 and advanced by the applicant at the lower court hearing.  They were canvassed and duly rejected by the Judge.  For the reasons that we gave in our judgment of 18 January 2019, we did not see any prospect of success in the applicant’s intended appeal against the Judge’s order. 

8.  None of the questions raised by the applicant in the notice of motion involve any question of great general or public importance is such that it ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision.  Nor do we see any basis for granting leave on the “or otherwise” limb.  The statutory criteria for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal under section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap. 484) are not met.

9.  Accordingly, we refuse to give the applicant leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal and dismiss his notice of motion.