RE NGUYEN THI HA

CACV 246/2021

[2022] HKCA 80

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 246 OF 2021

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 1303 OF 2018)

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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.  The applicant is a Vietnamese national whose non-refoulement claim was rejected by the Director of Immigration and the Torture Claims Appeal Board/adjudicator of the Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office. Her application for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision was rejected by Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan,[1] and her appeal against that decision was dismissed by this Court on 28 October 2021.[2]

2.  The relevant facts and procedural history and the reasons for dismissing the appeal have been set out in our previous judgment and will not be repeated here.

3.  The applicant now seeks, by Notice of Motion dated 26 November 2021, leave to appeal further to the Court of Final Appeal.  In the Notice of Motion, the applicant largely reiterated verbatim her prior submissions on appeal to this Court.  We had already addressed and rejected those arguments in our judgment of 28 October 2021.

4.  Pursuant to the directions of the Registrar of Civil Appeals under Practice Direction 2.1, this application will be dealt with on paper without an oral hearing.

5.  In her written submissions of 2 December 2021, besides reiterating the background, the applicant simply set out certain general legal principles and quoted passages from authorities and statutes, and asserted that the Board acted in a procedurally unfair manner in dealing with her application without properly assessing her credibility.  However, as we noted in our judgment of 28 October 2021, the applicant’s credibility was not in issue.

6.  Having considered the materials available, we are satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect of success in the intended appeal or any question involved which, by reason of its great general or public importance, ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision, as required by section 22(1)(b)  of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap 484).  Nor do we see any reason why the applicant should, for some other reason, be allowed to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.

7.  The Notice of Motion is therefore dismissed.