RE GENON MARIA LEONORA OMBROSA

CAMP 276/2021

[2022] HKCA 318

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO 276 OF 2021

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 1858 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 Philippine 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 K W Lung,[1] and her appeal against that decision was dismissed by this Court on 11 November 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 17 December 2021, leave to appeal further to the Court of Final Appeal. In the Notice of Motion, the applicant stated:

“ I would like to infomr the Honourable Court that there is some error in 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 overwheming of the evidence of this violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The Decision is betrary a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.” [sic]

4.  Pursuant to the directions of the Registrar of Civil Appeals under Practice Direction 2.1, it is appropriate to deal with this application on paper without an oral hearing.

5.  In her written submissions of 28 December 2021, the applicant simply reiterated her previous arguments on appeal to this Court. We had already addressed and rejected those arguments in our judgment of 11 November 2021.

6.  Further, in those submissions the applicant set out certain general legal principles and quoted passages from authorities and statutes that were not raised in her previous arguments on appeal to this Court. The applicant also submitted that the Board erred by simply trying to see whether it could find fault with the Director’s decision, that the Board failed to scrutinize the Director and that it is a general practice of the Board not to question or find fault with the Director’s decision. In addition, she submitted that the Board ought to have considered country of origin conditions. These matters do not constitute proper grounds of appeal from this court’s judgment.

7.  Having considered the materials available, we are satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect 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.

8.  The Notice of Motion is therefore dismissed.