ENTENDEZ JUNREY WABE v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 111/2019

[2022] HKCFI 2248

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 111 of 2019

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 36-year-old national of the Philippines who arrived in Hong Kong on 22 January 2017 as a visitor with permission to remain up to 5 February 2017 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and on 16 February 2017 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to the Philippines he would be harmed or killed by 2 men whom he had witnessed committing a murder in his home town. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Surigao City, the Philippines. After leaving school he lived with his girlfriend and raised a family with 2 children by working as a store assistant and then a security guard in his home town.

3.  One night in December 2016 while he was on his way home from work, he saw 2 men beating another man with wooden sticks, and when the victim fell onto the ground, one of the men shot and killed him with a pistol. When the 2 men saw the Applicant, they yelled at him with a warning that they would kill him if he were to tell anyone of the murder while the Applicant was fleeing from the scene.

4.  After the incident, the Applicant heard that those 2 killers were probably soldiers and that they were looking for him everywhere. Fearing for his life, the Applicant therefore departed the Philippines on 22 January 2017 for Hong Kong where he subsequently overstayed and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 16 April 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).             

5.  By a Notice of Decision dated 25 May 2018 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 his 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”).

6.  In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from those 2 killers upon his return to the Philippines as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no reason or necessity for them to silence him given the fact that he had never gone to the police about the murder before he left the country, that in the absence of any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant if resorted to upon his return to the Philippines, and that reliable and objective Country of Origin Information (“COI”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in the Philippines with a large population of 104 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 300,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other part of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Manila where it would be difficult if not impossible for those 2 killers to locate him.

7.  On 29 May 2018 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 10 October 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 28 December 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

8.  In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of threats from the 2 men whom he had witnessed committing a murder, but found in the absence of any official involvement that state/police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to the Philippines as well as reasonable internal relocation for him to move safely to other part of the country away from his home district without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.  On 11 January 2019 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form or in his supporting affidavit of the same date in which he merely repeated his claim as before but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor was he able to do so at the hearing of his application. As such and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in his 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 his intended challenge.

10.  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.

11.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been correctly established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decision that the risk of harm in his claim is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of the Philippines, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.                

12.  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.

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