ANDER KATHYLYN DELA CRUZ v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 121/2023

[2023] HKCFI 1397

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 121 of 2023

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 (counsel for) the Applicant in open court / the Applicant being absent in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 41-year-old national of the Philippines who last arrived in Hong Kong on 24 May 2019 with permission to continue to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract on 24 January 2021 or within 14 days of its early termination, but upon the completion of her last employment and when she was unable to find further employment, she did not depart upon the expiration of her extended stay on 18 February 2021 and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police some 11 months later on 30 January 2022. After she was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, she raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if she returned to the Philippines she would be harmed or killed by her creditor over her unpaid debts.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, the Philippines. After leaving school she worked as a cashier for several years in her home district before going over to Singapore in 2009 to work as domestic helper, and then in January 2012 she started to come to Hong Kong to work as a foreign domestic helper.

3.  In 2017 she purchased a piece of land in her home district by borrowing a loan from a local money-lender in her home district repayable by 10 monthly installments including interests charged on the loan, but when she later defaulted with her repayments, her creditor made death threats against her, and so after her last employment was completed in January 2021 and when she was unable to find further employment, she was afraid to return to the Philippines and so she 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 24 September 2022, and attended screening interviews before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”)

4.  By a Notice of Decision dated 13 October 2022 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”).

5.  In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from her creditor upon her return to the Philippines as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from her creditor, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to put pressure on her to repay her loan, 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 if resorted to, 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 114 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 Philippines away from her home district in large cities such as Davao or Cebu where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

6.  On 19 October 2022 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, for which she attended an oral hearing 18 November 2022 before the Board during which she gave oral evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 5 December 2022 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

7.  In its decision the Board found serious inconsistencies discrepancies and contradictions in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted the credibility of her claim of fear of harm from her creditor that caused her to overstay in Hong Kong, which was further undermined by her failure to raise her claim until more than 11 months later and after her arrest by the police, and that even if such fear were true that it arose from a private monetary dispute between the two of them without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to the Philippines as well as reasonable internal relocation for her to move safely to other part 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.

8.  On 30 January 2023, the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in her Form or in her supporting affidavit of the same date to which she just attached a copy of the Board’s decision but without putting forth any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor did she request any oral hearing for 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.

9.  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.

10.  In the Applicant’s case, the Board essentially rejected her claim on its adverse finding on her credibility for the detailed and thorough analysis and reasoning set out in paragraphs 26 – 39 of its decision with the benefit of hearing her in her oral evidence and her answers to questions raised of her claim, and in the absence of any error of law 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 to challenge the finding of the Board.

11.  Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been correctly established by both the Director and the Board in their decisions that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim if true is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of the Philippines, there is simply no justification to afford her 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 her 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