Re Umenwa Uchenna Nichodemus

CAMP 37/2019

[2019] HKCA 1251

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 37 OF 2019

(ON AN INTENDED APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 788 OF 2017)

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Yeung VP (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.By a judgment dated 15 August 2019 ([2019] HKCA 860), the Court of Appeal refused to grant an extension of time for the applicant to appeal against the decision of Campbell-Moffat J (“the Judge”) dated 5 September 2018 in HCAL 788/2017 refusing to grant leave to the applicant to apply for judicial review against the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) dated 19 September 2017

2.By a notice of motion dated 28 August 2019, the applicant seeks leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on the following grounds:

“I would like to inform 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 favour while rejecting my claim. Actual life occurs different situation then what is mentioned in COL Information. The officer and courts prefer to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of this 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 not reasonable.”

3.Pursuant to the directions made by the Registrar of Civil Appeals on 2 September 2019, the applicant should lodge his written submissions on or before 11 September 2019 but he failed to do so.  The Registrar further directed that unless the court otherwise directs, the notice of motion shall be determined on the papers only without an oral hearing.  As it is appropriate to do so, this application is processed on the papers without an oral hearing.

4.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.  Here, the Board rejected the applicant’s case on the issue of credibility and found that he was not a genuine asylum seeker.  As stated in [14] of our judgment, we agreed with the Judge that the Board had properly enquired and assessed the applicant’s case and we found no errors of law or procedure nor a failure to adhere the high standard of fairness throughout.  In our judgment, none of the matters stated in the notice of motion can be constituted as valid ground of appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.  

5.For the reasons that we gave in our judgment, we do not see any prospect of success in the applicant’s intended appeal against the Judge’s decision and order.  None of the questions raised by the applicant in the notice of motion involves an arguable point or a question of great general or public importance.  We do not see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb under section 22(1)(b) either.  The statutory criteria for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal is not met.

6.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