Vikramjit Singh v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 1073/2018

[2021] HKCFI 1550

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 1073 of 2018

BETWEEN

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;  or
	consideration of the documents and oral submissions by the Applicant in open court;

Order by Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan:

Leave to apply for judicial review refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 31-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 20 December 2008 with permission to remain as a visitor up to 3 January 2009 when he did not depart and instead overstayed and was arrested by the police on 15 January 2009. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a torture claim on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by his former girlfriend’s family who were against their relationship, and after his torture claim was rejected, he then sought non-refoulement protection on the same basis. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Vikasnagar, Khandwala, Amritsar, Punjab, India. While at school he started to date his former girlfriend from the same village but kept their relationship as a secret due to their different religions.

3.However, in 2006 when their relationship was discovered by her family who then demanded that the Applicant ceased the relationship with threats of violence, and after two incidents when he was beaten by his girlfriend’s brother and cousin, he became fearful for his life, and so on his parents’ advice he departed India on 19 December 2008 for Hong Kong where he subsequently overstayed, and upon his arrest by the police he raised his torture claim, and after it was rejected he then sought non-refoulement protection, for which he completed a Supplementary Claim Form (“SCF”) on 10 May 2017 and attended a screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).     

4.By a Notice of Decision dated 20 June 2017 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all the remaining applicable grounds other than torture risk including risk of his absolute or non-derogable rights under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383 (“HKBOR”) being violated including right to life under Article 2 (“BOR 2 Risk”), risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of HKBOR (“BOR 3 Risk”), and 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”).

5.In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that there will be any real and substantial risk of him being harmed or killed by his former girlfriend’s family upon his return to India due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that after all these years since his departure of India that it is doubtful that his former girlfriend’s family would still have any adverse interest in him, that in any event it was a private personal dispute between the Applicant and his former girlfriend’s family without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant if resorted to, and that reliable and objective Country of Origin Information (“COI”) shows that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in India with a large population of 1.2 billion people spread across a vast territory of more than 3.2 million square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied young adult to move to other parts of India away from his home district in large cities such as Mumbai where it would be difficult if not impossible for his former girlfriend’s family to locate him.

6.On 27 June 2017 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 12 December 2017 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 6 April 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

7.In its decision the Board found numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in the Applicant’s evidence of his alleged relationship with his former girlfriend that it did not consider him to be a witness of truth or was in a relationship with his alleged former girlfriend and had fabricated his claim in an attempt to extend his stay in Hong Kong that it does not accept that he genuinely fears harm in India on the basis of his alleged past relationship that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.     

8.On 11 June 2018 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he merely stated that he rejects the decision because it disregarded his dangerous situation but without any particulars or elaboration how it did so, nor did he put forward any other proper grounds for his intended challenge at the hearing of his application. As such and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis for his intended challenge.

9.As has been repeatedly emphasized by the Court of Appeal, judicial review does not operate as a rehearing of a non-refoulement claim when the proper occasion for the Applicant to present and articulate his claim is in the screening process and interview before the Immigration Department and in the process before the Board where the evaluation of the risk of harm is primarily a matter for the Director and the Board as they are entitled to make such evaluation based on the evidence available to them that the court will not usurp their role as primary decision makers in the absence of any legal error or procedural unfairness or irrationality in their decisions being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, as judicial review is not an avenue for revisiting the assessment by them in the hope that the court may consider the matter afresh: Re Lakhwinder Singh [2018] HKCA 246; Re Daljit Singh [2018] HKCA 328; Re Mudannayakalage Chaminda Pushpa Kumara [2018] HKCA 400; and Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524.

10.In the Applicant’s case, the Board rejected his claim essentially on its adverse finding on his credibility for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in paragraphs 35 – 46 of its decision with the benefit of hearing him in his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim, and in the absence of any error of law or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis to challenge the finding of the Board.  

11.Furthermore, the fact is that it has been established by the Director in his decision that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim if true is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other parts of India, a decision also confirmed by the Board, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.     

12.In the premises and having considered the decisions of both the Director and the Board with rigorous examination and anxious scrutiny, I do not find any error of law or procedural unfairness in either of them, nor any failure on their part to apply high standards of fairness in their consideration and assessment of the Applicant’s claim.

13.For these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and I accordingly refuse his leave application.

Dated the 31^st day of May 2021.

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

Form CALL-1