Re Tusiime Godfrey

CACV 274/2020

[2021] HKCA 843

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 274 OF 2020

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO 1769 OF 2018)

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Before:  Hon Au JA and G Lam JA in Court

Date of Written Submissions:  16 February 2021

Date of Judgment:  11 June 2021

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J U D G M E N T

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

1.On 3 February 2021, the applicant filed a Notice of Motion to apply for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal against this Court’s (Au JA and G Lam J) judgment of 27 January 2021 (“the Judgment”) [2021] HKCA 110.  In the Judgment, we dismissed the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge KW Lung dated 7 July 2020, refusing him leave to apply for judicial review.

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.  After reviewing the Notice of Motion, we see no reason to deviate from the usual practice to consider this application on paper pursuant to paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 2.1.

3.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.

4.In his Notice of Motion, the applicant raised the following grounds of appeal:

“1. In my Judgment the Honourable Judges did not proper observation, that Torture Claims Appeal Board (the TCAB) and the Director of Immigration (The Directors) failed to proper assessed my fear in my claim that why I would not return to my country of origin only for fear for save my life.

2. Failed to proper assessed my claim under BOR3 risk and BOR2. The fact is my life still in danger upon refoulement for which I would not return to my country.

3. Failure to proper the country of origin conditions.”[sic]

5.In his skeleton submissions of 16 February 2021 filed pursuant to the directions of the Registrar of Civil Appeals, the applicant essentially repeated the grounds in his Notice of Motion that the decision makers did not assess his fear properly, failed to observe the country of origin information, failed to assess his BOR2 and BOR3 risk claims properly and failed to assess his claim under the principle of high standard of fairness.

6.In our view, the applicant’s application is totally without merit.  The matters raised in the Notice of Motion and skeleton submissions are those advanced before but rejected by us with reasons stated at [20] - [22] of the Judgment.  The applicant simply failed to pinpoint any specific error in the Judgment.  These are therefore not viable grounds of appeal.

7.In the circumstances and in any event, we also 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.

8.For these reasons, we refuse to grant leave to appeal to the CFA, and dismiss the applicant’s Notice of Motion.

The applicant acting in person