RE AKTER SHAFALI

CAMP 234/2019

[2020] HKCA 552

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO 234 OF 2019

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL 420/2018)

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JUDGMENT

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Hon Lam VP (giving the Judgment of the Court):

Introduction

1.  On 12 May 2020, the Applicant applied by Notice of Motion for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against the judgment of 25 March 2020 of the Court (Lam VP and Chu JA).  In that judgment the Court dismissed the Applicant’s renewed application for extension of time to appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan (“the Judge”) on 21 June 2019 refusing leave to apply for judicial review. 

2.  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.

3.  The Applicant set out the following grounds for leave to appeal in her Notice of Motion for leave to appeal to the CFA:

“ I would like to infomr the Honourable Court that there is some error of law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on COL Information and my previous facts which were in favor while rejecting my claim. Acual life occur different situation then what is mentioned in COL Information. The Officer and cours prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of this violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The Decision is betray a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.”[sic]

4.  By her affirmation of 12 May 2020, the Applicant explained that she could not file the Notice of Motion earlier due to Covid-19 and postal delay.  We accepted that explanation.

5.  Notwithstanding the acknowledgment by the Applicant on 12 May 2020 of the requirement under Practice Direction 2.1 and the direction of the Registrar of Civil Appeals of 20 May 2020, she did not lodge any written submissions as directed under paragraph 3 of the Practice Direction.  The Court therefore processed the application on the papers based on materials already before us.

6.  The matters raised in the Notice of Motion are fact-sensitive ones relating to the specific circumstances of the case and do not give rise to questions of great general or public importance or other ground for submitting the matter to the CFA for decision. 

7.  Further, it is not clear to us what evidence of violence towards minorities the Applicant intended to refer to in her grounds of appeal.  She has never claimed to be a minority nor has such evidence been alluded to throughout her claims.

8.  In any event, the Applicant’s grounds for seeking leave to appeal failed to engage with the reasons for the dismissal of the appeal.  The Applicant did not raise any ground in respect of consideration of COI materials before the judge or before this Court.  Also, the Applicant has failed to pinpoint any specific errors in this Court’s judgment of 25 March 2020.

9.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA. We dismiss the Applicant’s Notice of Motion.