Mohammad Monir Hossain Munshi v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2180/2018

[2021] HKCFI 2272

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 2180 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 37-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 15 March 2008 and was arrested by police on 18 March 2008. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a torture claim later taken as a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain local supporters of rival political party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”). He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Dori Hailmara, District Narsingdi, Bangladesh, and became a supporter of the political party Awami League (“AL”) regularly attended their local rallies and meetings.

3.In June 2006 some local BNP supporters approached him and invited him to join their party, and when he refused, they made threats against him and demanded that he paid extortion money instead or else he would be killed, and one day in late June 2007 when he learnt that those local BNP supporters were coming to his home armed with weapons, he then fled to Dhaka, and on 2 July 2007 he departed Bangladesh for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 14 November 2016 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).     

4.By a Notice of Decision dated 6 January 2017 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all the applicable grounds including risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115 (“Torture Risk”), 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 of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from those local BNP supporters upon his return to Bangladesh as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that after all these years that it is doubtful that they would still have any interest in him, that his party AL have since become the ruling party of his country that in the absence of 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”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Bangladesh with a large population of 156 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 148,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult to move to other part of Bangladesh away from his home district in large cities such as Dhaka where he had stayed before without incidents and where it would be difficult if not impossible for those local BNP supporters to locate him.

6.The Applicant then lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 19 June 2017 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 2 October 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

7.In its decision the Board found multiple inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence between those given earlier to the Director in his NCF and screening interview and those given in his appeal hearing before the Board that it considered him not a credible witness and that he had manufactured his account of having been threatened with harm or extorted by persons in the manner described that it did not accept that these claimed events had actually occurred or that he would face any real risk of harm from anyone upon his return to Bangladesh that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

8.On 10 October 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 just stated that he rejects the decision as it disregarded his dangerous situation but without putting forth any proper grounds 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.

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 49 – 61 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 part of Bangladesh, 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 5^th day of August 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