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HCAL 1626/2018
[2020] HKCFI 1346
IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1626 OF 2018
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Hossain Anowar |
Applicant |
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Torture Claims Appeal Board /
Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office |
Putative Respondent |
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Director of Immigration |
Putative Interested Party |
Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review
NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord. 53 r. 3)
Following:
Order by The Honourable Mrs Justice Campbell‑Moffat:
Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.
Observations for the Applicant:
Procedural history
1. The applicant entered Hong Kong illegally on 7 April 2015 and was arrested by the police on the same day. He submitted a non-refoulement claim by way of written representation on 11 April 2015. His non-refoulement claim form was submitted on 31 October 2017.
2. The applicant attended a screening interview on 5 December 2017. The Director of Immigration (“the Director”) dismissed his claim on all grounds by Notice of Decision (“the Decision”) on 8 December 2017. He appealed the Decision to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the TCAB”). The adjudicator of the TCAB, Mr Evan Ruth (“the Adjudicator”), heard his appeal on 21 June 2018. The Adjudicator considered his appeal on all applicable grounds and refused his appeal on 10 August 2018.
3. The applicant filed a notice of application on a Form 86 seeking leave to apply for judicial review on 13 August 2018 and did not request an oral hearing. The matter was therefore considered on the papers.
Background
4. The applicant is a Bangladeshi national. He was born on 10 November 1985, in Shillongkor and received five years of formal education after which he assisted his father in his grocery store. From 2002, at the age of 17, the applicant was a strong supporter of the student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”). On 2014, at the age of 29, the applicant took part in an organised anti-government protest during the General Elections. This led to a clash between the applicant’s group of BNP supporters and the supporters of the Awami League (“AL”) and also with the police. The applicant maintains that his group were outnumbered by the AL and the police and were beaten up. Some of the senior members of his group were arrested. The applicant received a wound to his head and bruising which required hospital treatment. Whilst in hospital, the applicant heard from his family that members of AL had threatened him and they advised him not to return home. The applicant could not report these threats to the police as he had taken part in an anti -government rally and maintains that he was wanted by the police. The applicant fled to a local village to stay with a relative and thereafter went to Dhaka to stay with another relative. He was not harmed in either place. He remained with his uncle for a year, during which time he travelled freely to Malaysia and to Sri Lanka. He eventually decided to come to Hong Kong.
The non-refoulement claim
5. Under the Unified Screening Mechanism (“USM”), the applicant’s claim is to be assessed on all applicable grounds which are:
i. Risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115 (“torture risk”). Under torture risk, the applicant must establish he has substantial grounds for believing he will be subjected to torture if returned to his home state. Those grounds cannot be speculative or theoretical and the risk of torture must be real and personal. The standard of proof is a low one.
ii. Risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of section 8 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (“the HKBORO”), Cap 383 and Article 7 of the ICCPR (“BOR 3 risk”). Under BOR 3, the applicant must establish that he has a genuine and substantial risk of being subject to mental or physical torture; cruel, inhuman or degrading ill treatment; or punishment, if returned to his home state. The level of such mental or physical torture etc. must reach a minimum level of severity.
iii. 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”). Under persecution risk, the applicant must establish that he has a well-founded fear that there is a real chance that he will face persecution based upon race, religion, nationality or membership of a social group or political opinion if he is expelled and returned to his home state.
iv. Risk of a violation of the right to life under Article 2 of section 8 of the HKBORO, Cap 383 and Article 6 of the ICCPR (“BOR 2 risk”). Under BOR 2, the applicant must establish a real risk that he will be arbitrarily deprived of his life, have a death penalty imposed upon him; or be the victim of genocide or otherwise be deprived of his rights under BOR 2.
6. It is the duty of both the Director and the Adjudicator to weigh all of the available credible, reliable evidence and ascertain whether the applicant had established the factual basis of his claim. The Director and the Adjudicator must then assess the level of harm the applicant says he fears. Each ground of claim above has a relevant level of risk. It is for the applicant to establish that he is the subject of such risk. Under the HKBORO, he must show substantial grounds for believing that the harm which he fears is “foreseeable, real, personal and present”. The question is whether there is a real risk or real chance of the occurrence or recurrence of the harm which he fears.
Decision of the Director
7. The applicant seeks to review the Decision of the Director alone. As the applicant has already utilised the channel of appealing the Director’s decision to the TCAB and the TCAB treated the appeal as a rehearing, the Decision of the Director is not susceptible to judicial review once an appeal to the Board has been pursued by the claimant and dealt with[1]. The court has nevertheless gone on to consider the decision of the Adjudicator given that the complaint appended to the bottom of the Form 86 was somewhat vague and in order to avoid duplication of process.
Decision of the Adjudicator
8. The Adjudicator analysed the applicant’s claim on all applicable grounds. He arranged for an oral hearing and treated the appeal as a rehearing. He had before him all of the relevant documentation from the Director. The applicant had not sought to adduce any documentation of his own for consideration of the Board. The applicant appeared in person and had the assistance of a Bengali interpreter. The Adjudicator noted that the Director had taken the view that there was very little risk to the applicant as the purported ill‑treatment in Bangladesh had been of low intensity and frequency. The fact that the applicant had returned to the country from abroad supported the Director’s view that he was not in fear of reprisal from the state or quasi state agencies and that, in any event re-location was available.
9. The Adjudicator heard the matter afresh. He correctly set out the law and key legal principles including the burden and standard of proof. He found the applicant to be credible in part in so far as he relates his political activities and the likelihood of clashes between parties and the police at political rallies. But thereafter the Adjudicator found that events had been exaggerated “and contained no element of the truth”. In contrast to his other evidence he was unable to provide a coherent or consistent account of events in respect of being tracked by AL or of being wanted by the police. Nevertheless, the Adjudicator went on to consider the relevant risk of harm and possibility of recourse to state protection and came to the same conclusions as the Director.
Leave to apply for judicial review
10. Judicial review is not a rehearing of the merits of the applicant’s original application for refugee status. The primary decision makers in a claim for non-refoulement are the Director and the Adjudicator of the TCAB. They alone assess the evidence and make findings of fact upon matters raised by the applicant and which allegedly give rise to his non-refoulement claim, such as on risk of harm, availability of state protection and viability of internal re‑location. The role of this court in judicial review is not to re-assess the non-refoulement claim. This court will review the decision of the Adjudicator and only intervene by way of judicial review where it finds errors of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality. It is for the applicant to show an arguable case that there was either unlawfulness, unreasonableness or unfairness by those bodies or persons when dealing with his application in order to obtain leave to judicially review them.
Grounds of review
11. There were no grounds of review save for a complaint that the decision to refuse his claim was unreasonable because it had not been carefully considered. The applicant seeks a re‑hearing of his appeal. He has not complained of any procedural irregularity, unfairness or unreasonableness. The applicant has a duty to state the grounds of his intended judicial review and show that they are reasonably arguable and enjoy a realistic prospect of success: Po Fun Chan v Winnie Cheung (2007) 10 HKCFAR 676. I have nevertheless considered whether the papers indicate any such ground for the purposes of considering whether to grant leave.
Conclusion
12. Despite the fact that the applicant did not submit any substantial grounds of review, due to the seriousness of the issues at hand, I have considered the papers carefully. It is clear that both the Director and Adjudicator took utmost care when considering his case and gave him the benefit of the doubt in many respects. I have not found any error of law or procedure. I see no evidence of procedural unfairness nor a failure to adhere to a high standard of fairness throughout. Despite the onus being upon the applicant, the Adjudicator engaged in a joint endeavour with the applicant and considered all relevant criteria; gave the applicant a reasonable opportunity to state his case and enquired into that case appropriately. There is no criticism of his determination, which was open to him on the facts and eminently reasonable[2].
13. In my judgement, there is no reasonably arguable basis upon which the applicant could found a claim for judicial review and, as such, there would be no realistic prospect of success if he were to be granted leave. I therefore refuse leave for judicial review.
Dated the 26th day of June 2020.
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(Marcus Wong) |
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for Registrar, High Court |
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.
Notes for the Applicant:
If leave has been refused, and the Applicant wishes to appeal this decision, the Applicant or his solicitors must:
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a) file any notice of appeal within 14 days from the date of judgment or order; and
b) serve any notice of appeal on the respondent and such interested parties as may be directed by the Court; and
c) within 7 days after the date on which service of the notice of appeal was effective, the appellant must lodge with the Registrar:
(i) a copy of the sealed judgment or order and copy of the reasoned decision; and
(ii) two copies of the notice of appeal, one of which shall be endorsed with the amount of the fee paid and the other indorsed with a certificate of the date of service of the notice (Order 59, rule 5(1)); and
d) the Registrar shall then cause the appeal to be set down in the list of appeals and within 4 days thereafter the appellant must give notice to that effect to all parties on whom the notice of appeal was served (Order 59, rule 5(3)); and
e) comply with Order 59 of the Rules of the High Court to properly progress the appeal.
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Sent to the Applicant
on 26 June 2020
Hossain Anowar
Applicant’s ref. no:
Nil. |
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Sent to the Putative Respondent / the Putative Respondent’s solicitors / such Putative Interested Parties as may be directed by the Court / the Putative Interested Parties’ solicitors on 26 June 2020
Torture Claims Appeal Board /
Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office
Putative Respondent’s ref. no.:
USM 9637/17/12/304/B1102
Department of Justice
for Director of Immigration
Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.:
QA T/C 2804/17
(formerly RBCZ 11441/15) |
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Form CALL-1
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