Rajat Kumar v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2037/2018

[2021] HKCFI 1742

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 2037 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 (counsel for) the Applicant in open court / the Applicant being absent 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 26-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 7 May 2013 with permission to remain as a visitor up to 11 May 2013 when he did not depart and instead overstayed and was arrested by the police on 17 November 2013. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by his uncle over some loan dispute. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Sheikhupur, District Nawan Shahr, Punjab, India. After leaving school he continued to reside with his parents, and worked as a cable network operator in his home village.

3.His father passed away in 1994, and in 2012 his brother borrowed a loan from his uncle for his own business for which his brother and mother signed a loan agreement with their land as security, but as the Applicant was then a minor, his uncle agreed that he could sign it later when he reached the age of 18 in 2013, but by then the Applicant refused to sign the loan agreement, his uncle therefore became furious and together with his son assaulted the Applicant and made death threats against him.      

4.After the assault the Applicant fled to Ludhiana to take shelter in his aunt’s place, and as he was still fearful for his life, he therefore on 6 May 2013 departed India for Hong Kong where he subsequently overstayed, and upon his arrest by the police, he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 8 September 2015 and attended a screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).     

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 27 November 2015 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all then applicable grounds including risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115 (“Torture Risk”), risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383 (“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”).

6.In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from his uncle upon his return to India as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from him, that it was a private family and loan dispute between them 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 man with working experience to move to other parts of India away from his home district in large cities such as Delhi where it would be difficult if not impossible for his uncle to locate him.

7.By a Notice of Further Decision dated 15 June 2017 the Director again rejected the Applicant’s claim in the absence of any response from him to an earlier invitation to submit additional facts which may be relevant to his non-refoulement claim on all applicable grounds for non-refoulement protection including any other absolute or non-derogable rights under HKBOR including right to life under Article 2 (“BOR 2 Risk”).

8.By then the Applicant was already in the process of appealing to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the earlier decision of the Director, the notice of which was filed on 10 December 2015, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 12 April 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 20 September 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decisions of the Director.

9.In its decision the Board found significant inconsistencies and contradictions in the Applicant’s evidence regarding his dispute with his uncle over the loan agreement that it considered them to be inherently implausible and unrealistic to the extent that it was not persuaded that the Applicant had given a truthful or reliable account of events before he left India that it concluded that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.  

10.On 26 September 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 repeated his claim that he cannot return to his home country as his life would be in danger there but without putting forward any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor did he request any oral hearing for 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.

11.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.

12.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 66 – 79 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.  

13.The fact is that it has been established by the Director in his decision that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim 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.     

14.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.

15.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 17^th day of June 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