SITI TARIYAH v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 92/2024

[2024] HKCFI 969

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 92 OF 2024

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

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;            or
	consideration of the documents and oral submissions by the Applicant in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 37-year-old national of Indonesia who arrived in Hong Kong on 20 December 2019 with permission 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 17 July 2022 she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested on 22 November 2022 for which she was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 months, during which she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Indonesia she would be harmed or killed by her creditor over her unpaid debts.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in DS Kedawung, Wanatirta Paguyangan Brebes, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia. After leaving school she married her husband and raised a family with a daughter in her home district.

3.  As her husband who was a farmer was often without work or income to support their family, the Applicant in 2012 decided to work in Taiwan as a domestic servant, and to finance such arrangement and the necessary expenses she borrowed a loan from a local money-lender to be repaid by installments by her husband from her monthly salary remitted from Taiwan.

4.  However in 2017 she was informed by her husband that he had borrowed another loan in her name from the same creditor for his use but for which he was unable to repay and therefore she had to do so on his behalf, and as a result she was furious and demanded to divorce him, which she subsequently did when she returned to Indonesia in the same year to make the necessary arrangements, during which her creditor came to demand for repayment of her husband’s loan, and in order to do so by installments, the Applicant returned to Taiwan to resume her employment there.

5.  In December 2019 she came to Hong Kong to start her new employment as a foreign domestic helper, but after her last employment was terminated in July 2022, she was unable to make any repayment to her creditor who then sent men to her home in Indonesia to look for her and threatened her family that they would kill her upon her return to the country, and so the Applicant was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her subsequent arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 1 February 2023 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 6 March 2023 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”).

7.  In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no real or foreseeable risk that she will be subjected to any serious harm or ill-treatment by her creditor and followers upon her return to Indonesia due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor 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 Indonesia with a large population of 277 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 1.9 million 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 Surabaya or Bali where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

8.  On 13 May 2023 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 11 October 2023 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 22 November 2023 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.  In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of harm from her creditor over her debts that caused her to overstay in Hong Kong to seek protection, but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between them without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Indonesia if resorted to 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 that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.  On 8 January 2024 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for relief was given in her Form or her supporting affirmation of the same date to which she just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forth any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor was she able to do so at the hearing of 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.

11.  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.

12.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been correctly 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 Indonesia, there is simply no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

13.  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.

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