BAZEER AHAMED SANFAR alias MOHAMED ISMAIL ZAWAHIR AND OTHERS v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD/NON-REFOULEMENT CLAIMS PETITION OFFICE

CACV 382/2020

[2022] HKCA 778

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 382 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 909 OF 2018)

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BETWEEN

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon G Lam JA (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  This is an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”). The applicants are a family of four whose claims for non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong were rejected by the Director of Immigration and by the Torture Claims Appeal Board/Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office (“Board”). Their application for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision was dismissed by the Court of First Instance. Their appeal against that decision was dismissed by this Court in our judgment dated 3 March 2022.[1]

2.  By Notice of Motion filed by the 1^st applicant on behalf of all the applicants on 21 April 2022 – outside the 28-day period prescribed by section 24 of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484), the applicants now seek leave to appeal against our judgment to the CFA. In the attachments to the motion, the applicant stated that the delay was due to their self-isolation under a home quarantine because of Covid symptoms. They emphasised, with materials from the Internet, that Rishad Bathiudeen, the 1^st applicant’s enemy in Sri Lanka, was a dangerous person. They also feared that, if the 2^nd applicant returned to Indonesia (her country of origin), she would be harmed or killed by her parents, leaving her children unattended. They also referred to the current problems in Sri Lanka. They stated that Indonesia will not recognise their overseas marriage unless certain complicated processes in their respective countries of origin are gone through which would take several years.

3.  In the accompanying affirmation, they referred to the fact that the court was closed for a period because of the pandemic, so that they could not file the notice of motion in time.

4.  Despite having acknowledged the directions for written submissions to be lodged with the court by 5 May 2022, the applicants have not to date lodged any written submissions for the present application. There is no reason for us to depart from the usual practice of determining an application of this kind on the basis of the available materials without an oral hearing.

5.  In the light of the reasons put forward for the delay, we are prepared to put that issue aside. Nevertheless we are of the view that this application ought to be dismissed because the applicants have not shown that the intended appeal raises any question which, by reason of its great general or public importance, or otherwise, ought to be submitted to the CFA for decision (which is the condition for giving leave to appeal under section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484), and also because they have failed to show any prospects of success in the intended appeal.

6.  Accordingly, the Notice of Motion is dismissed.