HKSAR v. GILL, INDERJIT KAUR

HCMA 573/2010

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 573 OF 2010

(ON APPEAL FROM KCCC 2423/2010)

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J U D G M E N T

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1.  The Appellant was convicted after the plea of guilty to one offence of using a forged identity card and one offence of breaching a condition of her stay in Hong Kong

2.  The brief facts were that the Appellant was found working in a restaurant in Hunghom on 26 May 2010.  Investigation revealed that she had applied for a job on 21 March 2010 with an identity card borrowed from a friend.

3.  The Appellant was represented by a duty lawyer at the time.  In mitigation, the lawyer submitted that the Appellant had committed these offences because of wanting to earn money in order to buy school books for her children.

4.  The Appellant and her husband are recognizance holders in Hong Kong and are supported by the International Social Service and the condition of their stay in Hong Kong is that the Appellant cannot work.

5.  The learned Magistrate correctly considered the case of HKSAR v Li Chang Li (2005), the Court sentencing the Appellant to 15 months’ imprisonment for the 1^st offence and 2 months’ imprisonment for the 2^nd offence, and both offences to sentences to run concurrently.

6.  On appeal, the Appellant representing herself had said that she is not appealing against the sentence on the ground that it is severe, but that she is appealing against the sentence on the ground that she had a “disease in Winter” that the prison authority would not be able to understand what she said and also, that, she wanted to leave prison either on bail or on a shorter sentence in order to look after her children.

7.  The first reason that she had a “disease in Winter” is non-reason because the Correctional Services Department has an excellent medical facility and whatever she had can be looked into by the medical facility within prison.

8.  As for the children, the learned Magistrate had indeed asked for the Social Welfare Department to look into the children’s welfare and the Appellant told me that the assistance of social welfare was declined.  She said her children are being looked after at home by their father.  So this ground, which is an appeal to the court for humanitarian reason to shorten her prison term, in my assessment of the situation, is not justified.  There are no grounds whatever to interfere with the learned Magistrate’s sentence and so the appeal is dismissed.