Ravi Kumar v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2535/2018

[2021] HKCFI 2579

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 2535 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 27-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong from Mainland China on 14 April 2012 and when he was refused entry and was repatriated to the Mainland on the same day, he later sneaked into Hong Kong on 19 April 2012 and was arrested by police on the same day. 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 paternal uncles and aunts over a land dispute in his home district, 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 Village Zinzaro, District Yamuna Nagar, Haryana, India where his grandfather had two wives and owned a large piece of land which his grandfather later passed onto those children born to the second wife without any interest to his father who was born to the first wife, and after his father brought a court case in 2007 to claim an interest in the land but was rejected by the local court in 2010.

3.Since the court case his uncles and aunts had become hostile towards his family and threatened to take away their house situated on the land and to drive them away, and after several confrontations between them which had turned violent during which the Applicant was beaten, and before his father passed away from cancer in May 2012, he advised the Applicant to leave India to save his life, and so on 9 April 2012 the Applicant departed for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, 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 12 January 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).  

4.Whilst being released on recognizance pending determination of his claim, the Applicant was arrested by police again on 7 August 2017 for undertaking unauthorized employment for which he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 months. 

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 9 February 2018 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”).

6.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 his paternal uncles and aunts upon his return to India as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that it was a private family dispute over land 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”) show 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 part of India away from his home district in large cities such as Mumbai or Kolkata where it would be difficult if not impossible for his uncles and aunts to locate him.

7.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 September 2018 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions put to him by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 7 November 2018 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

8.In its decision the Board found the Applicant’s evidence given in his appeal hearing grossly contradicted his earlier claim made to the Director when he conceded to the Board that his father actually already died in 2002 before any land dispute or court case with his uncles and aunts, and that his mother and siblings are still living in their house on the disputed land without any incidents since his departure, and given the serious discrepancies between his claim made to the Director and his evidence before the Board that it rejected his claim about a land dispute with his uncles and aunts as untrue in its entirety and concluded that there is no evidence of any risk of harm from anyone upon the Applicant’s return to India that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

9.On 12 November 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 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.

10.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.

11.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 18 – 35 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.  

12.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 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. 

13.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.

14.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 2^nd day of September 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