RE NAEEM BAJWA MUHAMMAD

CACV 162/2020

[2021] HKCA 855

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 162 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 2607 OF 2018)

____________________

____________________

_______________

J U D G M E N T

_______________

Hon Au JA (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  On 11 January 2021, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Cheung and Au JJA) judgment of 31 December 2020 (“the Judgment”) [2020] HKCA 1074. In the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge KW Lung dated 28 May 2020, refusing him leave to apply for judicial review.

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.  After reviewing the Notice of Motion, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice to consider this application on paper pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1.

3.  Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484) provides that an appeal shall lie to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) at the discretion of this Court or the CFA 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 CFA for decision.

4.  In his Notice of Motion, the applicant raised the following grounds of appeal:

“THE HIGH COURT JUDGES REFUSED MY APPLY BUT I DO NOT SATISFY. I HAVE NO WAY TO STAY IN HONG KONG EXCEPT GOING TO THE COURT OF FINAL APPEAL. PLEASE LET ME GO TO THE COURT OF FINAL APPEAL” [sic]

5.  In his skeleton submissions of 25 January 2020 filed pursuant to the Court’s directions, the applicant only repeated his claim and stated that the decisions of the Torture Claims Appeal Board and the courts were unlawful.

6.  In our view, the applicant’s application is totally without merit.  The matters raised in the Notice of Motion and skeleton submissions fail to pinpoint any specific error in the Judgment.  These are not viable grounds of appeal.

7.  In the circumstances and in any event, we also do not consider that there is any question of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for determination.

8.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA, and dismiss the applicant’s Notice of Motion.