Re Villano Maricar Tabita

CACV 346/2019

[2020] HKCA 998

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 346 OF 2019

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL 1594/2018)

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JUDGMENT

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

1.On 15 October 2020, the Applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s judgment of 30 December 2019. In that judgment we dismissed the Applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge K W Lung on 16 July 2019 dismissing her application for leave to apply for judicial review.

2.Section 22(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap 484 provides that an appeal shall lie to the Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) at the discretion of this Court or the CFA 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 CFA for decision.

3.Pursuant to section 24(2) of the Ordinance an appellant has 28 days from the date of the judgment to seek leave to appeal to the CFA.  In the present case, the time for the Applicant to seek leave to appeal against our judgment of 30 December 2019 should have expired on 29 January 2020.  Due to the closure of the Registry during the General Adjournment Period (arising from the COVID 19 Pandemic) up to 8 March 2020, the period was automatically extended to 9 March 2020.

4.As the Applicant did not apply for leave to appeal to the CFA within time, good and sufficient ground must be shown by the Applicant before the court will exercise its discretion to grant an extension of time: see: section 24(5) of the Ordinance.  See also: Full Wisdom Holdings Ltd v Traffic Stream Infrastructure Co Ltd CACV 266/2003, 27 July 2004; Bowlstar (HK) Ltd v Ho Kwai Po CACV 156/2006, 10 July 2007; Elijah Saatori v Raffles Medical Group CACV 109/2008, 11 March 2009; and Tsit Wing (Hong Kong) Company Limited & Others v TWG Tea Company Pte Ltd & Another (unreported) CACV 191/2013, 29 January 2015.

5.In the present case, the Applicant’s Notice of Motion was late by more than 7 months.  The delay is very substantial and she only said she was not aware of the procedure. That cannot be an acceptable excuse for the delay when she did not explain the steps she had taken to prosecute her appeal.

6.In her Notice of Motion for leave to appeal to the CFA and her supporting affirmation of the same date, the Applicant raised the following matters in support of her application:

“ 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]

7.Notwithstanding the acknowledgment by the Applicant on 15 October 2020 of the requirement under Practice Direction 2.1 and the direction of the Registrar of Civil Appeals of 19 October 2020, the Applicant did not lodge any written submissions in support of this application. 

8.The Applicant has not raised any reasonably arguable ground of appeal on the merit of her claim, or any discernible or arguable ground for disturbing our judgment.  The matters raised in her Notice of Motion do not identify any specific error in our judgment or the judgment of the court below.

9.In any event, we do not consider that there is any question of great general or public importance or which otherwise ought to be submitted to the CFA for determination.

10.For these reasons, we refuse to extend time to entertain her application for leave to appeal to the CFA. The Applicant’s Notice of Motion is dismissed accordingly.

The applicant acting in person