HKSAR v. PRAKASH THAPA

HCMA 939/2009

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 939 OF 2009

(ON APPEAL FROM TMCC 2858/2009)

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BETWEEN

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J U D G M E N T

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1.  The appellant pleaded guilty in the magistracy to possession of an identity card relating to another person (section 7A(1A) of the Registration of Persons Ordinance, Cap. 177) and unlawfully remaining in Hong Kong (section 38(1)(b) of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap. 115). He was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment, concurrent on each charge and he appeals against those sentences.

2.  The appellant was intercepted by a police officer on 29 July 2009 who asked for his identity card. He produced a Hong Kong identity card relating to another man, Gurung Amchandra. It was a genuine smart identity card, but the holder had obtained a replacement card and the one which was seized from the appellant had already been invalidated.

3.  Checks by the police revealed that it was an invalid card and the appellant was questioned. He thereupon admitted that he was an illegal immigrant, having entered Hong Kong unlawfully in July 2004 and having thereafter remained without the authority of the Director of Immigration for five years.

4.  The appellant’s mitigation, advanced to the magistrate by the duty lawyer on his behalf, was that he fled to Hong Kong to escape recruitment into the armed forces in Nepal, and left behind his wife and son.

5.  Today he says that he wants to return to Nepal, that he wants to reunite with his family, particularly with his wife and the young child, and particularly in the circumstances that he has been told that his elder sister has died and that his parents are very elderly.

6.  I should mention that although in the intervening five years, until the appellant’s interception by the police, he had not made any claim for refugee status, the magistrate adjourned his case for three months to give him an opportunity to apply for asylum and to make a claim, if he wished to do so, that he was fleeing from the risk of torture. However, the appellant made no such claim and informed the magistrate through the duty lawyer that he had no present intention of doing so.

7.  In my judgment, the sentences imposed by the magistrate are wholly in accordance with the established sentencing tariffs for offences by a person of clear record for possessing an identity card relating to another and producing that card to a police officer to extend an unlawfully stay (that authority is Li Chang Li [2005] 1 HKLRD 864); and for unlawfully remaining (a case called R v So Man King [1989] 1 HKLR 142).

8.  There is, in my judgment, no ground to complain about the terms imposed; and, given, firstly, that the appellant had unlawfully remained in Hong Kong for five years, he was fortunate that the term was not increased from the usual 15 months to reflect that; and secondly, given that he sought to prolong his unlawfully stay by the production of the card, he could not have complained if the magistrate had ordered the two sentences of imprisonment to run partially consecutively.

9.  Although he mentions his family matters today, those matters cannot have any impact on the proper sentence to be imposed upon him. I am satisfied that there is no merit in this appeal and it must be dismissed.

Mr Robert Lee, Senior Public Prosecutor of the Department of Justice, for the Respondent

Appellant, appears in person