Re Bind Ashoke Kumar

CACV 283/2019

[2019] HKCA 1297

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 283 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 767 OF 2018)

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Before:  Hon Chu JA, G Lam and Lisa Wong JJ in Court

Date of Written Submissions:  17 October 2019

Date of Judgment:  22 November 2019

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon G Lam J (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.On 30 September 2019, we handed down our judgment[1] dismissing the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Josiah Lam given on 14 June 2019 refusing leave to apply for judicial review. The applicant had sought judicial review of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board dismissing his appeal from the decision of the Director of Immigration rejecting his non-refoulement claim.

2.On 4 October 2019, the applicant filed a notice of motion to seek leave to appeal from our judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.  On 17 October 2019 the applicant lodged written submissions in support of his application.

3.Having considered the applicant’s notice of motion and written submissions, we see no reason to depart from the usual practice of determining applications of this kind on paper without a hearing.

4.In the notice of motion, the applicant put forward the following matters as his proposed grounds of appeal:

“ 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 overwhelming 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]

5.The first three pages of the applicant’s written submissions simply reproduced verbatim the skeleton submissions dated 21 August 2019 which he lodged in support of the appeal before us and which we have dealt with in our judgment.  In pages 4 to 5 the applicant claims that the Board acted in a procedurally unfair manner without properly assessing the credibility of the applicant, sets out two quotations from cases on the concept of “unreasonableness”, and mentions section 37ZT of Immigration Ordinance (Cap 115) which concerns the late filing of notice of appeal.  It is not clear to us however, and the applicant has wholly failed to elaborate or explain, how these matters relate to or assist his application for leave to appeal further.

6.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, nothing in the notice of motion and the written submissions properly identifies any error in our judgment, let alone any point of great general or public importance.  The condition for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal is not met.  Nor do we see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb of section 22(1)(b).

7.Accordingly, the applicant’s notice of motion is dismissed.

Written submissions by the applicant, acting in person