RE DANDIWAL SANDEEP SINGH

CACV 461/2020

[2021] HKCA 870

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 461 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 704 OF 2018)

____________________

____________________

_______________

J U D G M E N T

_______________

Hon Au JA (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.  On 3 May 2021, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Cheung and Au JJA) judgment of 19 April 2021 (“the Judgment”) [2021] HKCA 502.  In the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan dated 3 September 2020, refusing him leave to apply for judicial review.

2.  The facts and issues in the appeal, as well as the Court’s reasons for dismissing it, are set out in the Judgment.  We will not repeat them here.  After reviewing the Notice of Motion, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice to consider this application on paper pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1.

3.  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.

4.  In his Notice of Motion, the applicant raised the following grounds of appeal:

“Dear Sir/Madam, with due respect and humble submissions I beg to you that I couldn’t accept the decision which was made on 19 April 2021 by Judge, because there are some incorrect informations which are used by the court to make the decision. Decision maker relied just a simple hearsay. This decision made me irrational of my life and disappointed me about my life security. This decision was unfair and reflected my claim. The other grounds are written on the Annex-A.” [sic]

5.  In the one paged document attached to his Notice of Motion titled “Annex-A”, the applicant advanced the following grounds: (a) the decision has the effect of disposing finally the applicant’s claim and is thus significant; (b) high standard of fairness is required in assessing the non‑refoulement cases; (c) the judge erred in law in not applying the principle of irrationality; (d) the judge did not analyse the applicant’s claim properly in his home country; and (e) the judge’s refusal against the applicant’s appeal was unreasonable.

6.  In his written submissions of 17 May 2021 filed pursuant to the directions of the Registrar of Civil Appeals, other than the grounds he has already stated in Annex-A, the applicant further complained that the adjudicator did not give him sufficient time to arrange for evidence; that the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) relied on unrecognized source of information and he sought this Court’s permission to give him some time to submit new documents.

7.  In our view, the applicant’s application is totally without merits.  Except the argument that the Board relied on outdated and / or unrecognized source of information, which we had considered and rejected at [14] - [18] of the Judgment, the rest of the arguments in the Notice of Motion and written submissions are new arguments and thus would not be entertained: see Sorip Khan v Torture Claims Appeal Board & Anor [2019] HKCA 510 at [12]; Re Md Iqbal [2019] HKCA 912 at [13(3)]; Re Sudimah [2019] HKCA 1030 at [12(3)]; and Re Marshall Bill O [2019] HKCA 1031 at [13(3)]. There are therefore no viable grounds of appeal.

8.  Further, insofar as his alleged lack of chance to collect supporting documents is concerned, the applicant has failed to even identify what those documents are.  This is clearly not a viable ground of appeal.

9.  In the circumstances and in any event, we also do not consider that there is any question of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for determination.

10.  For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA, and dismiss the applicant’s Notice of Motion.