Alam Mahtab v. Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non Refoulement Claims Petition Office

CACV 487/2018

[2019] HKCA 594

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 487 OF 2018

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 366 OF 2018)

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J U D G M E N T

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

1.By a judgment dated 18 January 2019 ([2019] HKCA 231), this Court (Hon Barma, Poon and Au JJA) dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Campbell-Moffat J dated 26 September 2018 refusing to grant leave to him to apply for judicial review.  The intended judicial review was against the decision of the Board dated 22 February 2018.  The applicant now seeks leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.

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.

3.By a notice of motion dated 12 March 2019, the applicant applied for leave to appeal against our judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.

4.In the Notice of Motion, the applicant set out the following grounds :

“ I would like to inform court, there is some error in law in my decision. Decision maker just relied on col (COI) information and previous facts which were favour on rejected my claim. Actual life occur different situation then mentioned col (COI) information. Officer and courts prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of the violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining. The decision is betray a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly calculate to reject my claim.”

5.In compliance with the direction given by Master Au-Yeung on 13 March 2019, the applicant lodged his written submission on 25 March 2019.  In his written submissions, the applicant reiterated that it would not be safe for him to return to his home country.  He complained against the Director for failing to adequately consider the relevant country of origin information (“COI”) and wrongly concluded that there was no state acquiescence.  He also complained the Board for failing to attain the high standard of fairness and cherry-picked COI which was against his case in order to dismiss his claim for non-refoulement protection. 

6.We have duly considered the applicant’s notice of motion and his written submissions.  Pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1, this application is processed on papers without any oral hearing.

7.Under section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484, leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal may be granted 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 Court of Final Appeal for decision.  For the reasons that we gave in our judgment of 28 February 2019, we did not see any prospect of success in the applicant’s intended appeal against the Judge’s order.  None of the questions raised by the applicant in the notice of motion or in his written submissions involve any question of great general or public importance is such that it ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision.  The statutory criteria for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal under section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap. 484) are not met.

8.Accordingly, we refuse to give the applicant leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal and dismiss his notice of motion.

The applicant, unrepresented, acted in person