Siddique Aamir v. Director of Immigration

HCAL 101/2022

[2022] HKCFI 806

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 101 of 2022

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:

1.         Leave to apply for Judicial Review be refused; and

2.         A Restricted Proceedings Order (RPO) be made against the Applicant.

Observations for the Applicant:

Introduction

1.This is an application for leave to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) dated 3 December 2021 refusing to allow the Applicant to make a subsequent claim for non-refoulement protection after his previous claim had been rejected by both the Director and the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) under the Unified Screening Mechanism (“USM”) on all applicable grounds.   

2.The Applicant is a 48-year-old national of Pakistan who entered Hong Kong illegally on 8 January 2016 and was arrested by police on the same day. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Pakistan he would be harmed or killed by a neighbor over the neighbor’s land dispute with the Applicant’s father in their home district.

Previous Non-Refoulement Claim          

3.By a Notice of Decision dated 24 May 2016 and a Notice of Further Decision dated 3 July 2017 the 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”).

4.In his decisions 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 neighbor upon his return to Pakistan as low due to the fact that it was a dispute between the neighbor and the Applicant’s father over some land in which the Applicant had no interest, that it was in any event a private personal 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”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Pakistan with a large population of 196 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 796,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other part of Pakistan away from his home district in large cities such as Karachi where it would be difficult if not impossible for his neighbor to locate him.

5.The Applicant’s appeal against the Director’s decisions was dismissed by the Board on 29 December 2017 after hearing him in evidence and submissions and upon finding no merits in his claim or his appeal, and that it also confirmed the Director’s decisions.

6.The Applicant’s application for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision was also refused by this Court on 12 April 2019 upon finding none of the proposed grounds for his intended challenge reasonably arguable, that there was no error of law or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision, and that there was no prospect of success in his intended application (HCAL 37/2018 [2019] HKCFI 922).

7.The Applicant’s subsequent appeal against the Court’s decision was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 15 January 2020 (CAMP 167/2019 [2020] HKCA 47).

8.The Applicant’s notice of motion for leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision was also dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 13 July 2020 ([2020] HKCA 554), and then by the Appeal Committee of the Court of Final Appeal on 3 September 2021 under Rule 7 of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Rules, Cap 484A.

Request To Make Subsequent Claim

9.Three weeks later on 24 September 2021 the Applicant in writing to the Immigration Department requested to make a subsequent claim on the basis that his neighbor is pursuing his land dispute with his family in his home district and has lodged a court case against his family with death threats against him, and hence he still fears of being killed if refouled to Pakistan. 

10.There are however constraints on a claimant who has previously made a non-refoulement claim to make a subsequent claim, as stipulated by Section 37ZO of the Immigration Ordinance as follows:

“(1) Except as provided in subsection (2), a person who has previously made a torture claim must not subsequently make another torture claim.

(2) A person may make a subsequent claim if the person provides sufficient evidence in writing to satisfy an immigration officer that –

(a) there has been a significant change of circumstances since the previous claim was finally determined or withdrawn; and

(b) the change, when taken together with the material previously submitted in support of the previous claim, would give the subsequent claim a realistic prospect of success.

(3) In deciding whether or not a person may make a subsequent claim under subsection (2), an immigration officer may take into account any finding of credibility or fact made by an immigration officer or the Appeal Board in relation to a torture claim previously made by the person.

(4) If an immigration officer decides that a person may make a subsequent claim under subsection (2), the immigration officer must give the person written notice of the decision.

(5) If an immigration officer decides that a person may not make a subsequent claim under subsection (2), the immigration officer must give the person written notice of the decision, and the notice must also include the reasons for the decision.”

11.Accordingly, on 6 October 2021 the Director required the Applicant to provide further information and evidence in writing in support of his request within 14 days, which he subsequently did on 19 November 2021.

12.By a Notice of Decision dated 3 December 2021 the Director refused to allow the Applicant to make a subsequent claim upon finding that the basis thereof was essentially the same as that of his previous claim, and that he failed to provide sufficient evidence in writing to satisfy an immigration officer that there has been a significant change of circumstances since his previous claim was determined, or that those changes when taken together with the material previously submitted in support of his previous claim would give his subsequent claim any realistic prospect of success.

13.On 28 January 2022 the Applicant filed a Form 86 in these proceedings for leave to apply for judicial review of the Director’s decision, and in his supporting affirmation filed on the same day he put forth various grounds for his intended challenge which can be summarized as follows:

(a)   That the Director failed to give any or sufficient reason for refusing his request for subsequent claim without providing legal representation from Duty Lawyer Service;

(b)   That the Director wrongly exercised his case management power by using a biased and formulaic approach in coming to a conclusion that state protection would be available to the Applicant as a matter of fact which is however contradicted by the available COI which is both unfair and prejudicial;

(c)   hat the Director failed to apply high standards of fairness in providing no legal assistance to the Applicant in his request for a subsequent claim;

(d)   That the Director’s assessment of the Applicant’s credibility was procedurally unfair and/or irrational;

(e)   That the director erred in law by excluding or giving no weight to certain evidence by regarding them as hearsay or speculation;

(f)  That the Director erred in law and/or acted in a procedurally manner by wholesale dismissing the Applicant’s evidence as based on vague hearsay or speculation;

(g)   That the Director failed to take a holistic approach to consider the Applicant’s evidence as an aggregate whole rather than in isolation; and

(h)   That the Director wrongly excluded matters totally from consideration in the balancing process simply because the decision maker believed in what may be fragile evidence as probably did not occur.   

14.These are however mostly just broad and vague assertions of the Applicant without any useful details or particulars or meaningful elaborations as to how they apply to his case, or in what way was the Director biased or how did he fail to apply high standards of fairness or act in a procedurally unfair manner in assessing the Applicant’s request to make a subsequent claim, while it is also factually wrong for him to complain that the Director had failed to give any or sufficient reasons as they had been clearly set out in details in 8 – 14 of the decision but in which the Applicant failed to clearly or properly identify any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness either in his application or at the hearing when he could only repeat his claim that his problem in his home country has still remained unresolved. As such I do not find any of his listed grounds reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.    

15.In the premises, and having considered the decision of the Director with rigorous examination and anxious scrutiny, I do not find any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in the decision or any failure to apply high standards of fairness in the consideration and assessment of the Applicant’s request for subsequent claim, and as I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I accordingly refuse his leave application.

Restricted Proceedings Order

16.Given the facts that the Applicant’s non-refoulement claim has already been finally and conclusively determined in the previous proceedings, ending with the order of the Appeal Committee of the Court of Final Appeal dated 3 September 2021, but that the Applicant is still trying to re-litigate his case by making this subsequent claim based on essentially the same facts and basis as before, I shall next consider whether it would be appropriate to make a Restricted Proceedings Order (“RPO”) against him.

17.Section 27 of the High Court Ordinance, Cap 4 provides as follows:

“Restriction of vexatious legal proceedings

(1) The Court of First Instance may, on the application of the Secretary for Justice or an affected person, make an order that –

(a) no legal proceedings shall without the leave of the Court of First Instance be instituted by the person against whom the order is made; and

(b) any legal proceedings instituted by that person in any court before the making of the order shall not be continued by him without the leave of the Court of First Instance.

(2) The Court of First Instance may not make an order under subsection (1) unless –

(a)   it is satisfied that the person against whom the order is to be made has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground instituted vexatious legal proceedings, whether in the High Court or in any inferior court, and whether against the same person or against different persons; and

(b)   it has heard the person against whom the order is to be made or given him an opportunity of being heard.

(3) An order made under subsection (1) –

(a)   may be made on such terms and conditions as the Court of First Instance thinks just; and

(b)   may provide that it is to cease to have effect at the end of a specified period, but shall otherwise remain in force indefinitely.

   …”

18.In Etik Iswanti v Torture Claims Appeal Board [2021] HKCFI 1589, Chow JA (sitting as an additional judge of the Court of First Instance) examined the relevant principles for making an order under Section 27 against a non-refoulement claimant to prevent him or her from commencing vexatious legal proceedings which sought to re-open a non-refoulement claim which had already been finally and conclusively determined in previous proceedings, and held that repeated actions evidencing a calculated attempt by a claimant to delay an inevitable judgment or its execution or a refusal to accept the unfavourable final result of a litigation or seeking to re-open matters already determined in a previous action may be regarded as vexatious legal proceedings which would justify a RPO being made under the section.  

19.His Lordship in the subsequent case of Re Wahyuni v Director of Immigration [2021] HKCFI 1991 (again sitting as an additional judge of the Court of First Instance) went on to hold that apart from Section 27 of the High Court Ordinance, the court has an inherent jurisdiction which it can exercise on its own motion to make a RPO to prevent similar abuses of the court’s process by non-refoulement claimants, as the underlying purpose of the court’s jurisdiction to make a RPO is the prevention of abuse of process ([9] – [10]).

20.In the present case, it is clear from the above that the Applicant’s conduct in seeking persistently to re-litigate his non-refoulement claim without viable grounds amounts to an abuse of process, and that unless a RPO is made against him, he will likely continue to do so and thereby wasting further precious time and resources of the Judiciary.

21.Accordingly, I make the following order:

(1)  The Applicant be prohibited from commencing any fresh proceedings by whatever originating process, or continuing any existing legal proceedings, relating to any non-refoulement claim of the Applicant in the Court of First Instance unless with leave obtained under paragraph (2);

(2)  All applications for leave under paragraph (1) shall be made to this Court or the Judge in charge of the Constitutional and Administrative Law List or such other Judge as may be designated by the Chief Judge of the High Court to hear cases in the Constitutional and Administrative Law List;

(3)  At least 7 days before filing any application for leave under paragraph (1), the Applicant do notify in writing each intended defendant or respondent of his intention to make such application, enclosing a copy of the draft document by which the fresh proceedings are intended to be commenced, and if any response is received by the Applicant from any such intended defendant or respondent, that the Applicant do file a copy of each such response together with his said application for leave;

(4)  Any intended defendant or respondent having notice of such intended proceedings be entitled but under no obligation to place before the court written representations regarding the same;

(5)  All applications made pursuant to this order and all ancillary matters be dealt with by the court on paper and without any oral hearing unless this Court or the designated Judge should otherwise direct;

(6)  If the Applicant should issue fresh proceedings falling or which may fall within the terms of paragraph (1) without first seeking the court’s leave, and if such fact should come to the notice of the Registrar of the High Court or any Master or Judge, such fresh proceedings be referred to this Court or the designated Judge for a decision as to whether they should be permitted to continue or should be dismissed;

(7)  Notice of each decision by this Court or the designated Judge made pursuant to this order be given in writing to the Applicant and to each intended defendant or respondent named in the fresh proceedings;

(8)  Whether or not any fresh proceedings are brought to the notice of this Court or the designated Judge, if a defendant or respondent is served with such proceedings without the relevant documents being accompanied by either an order granting leave to commence such proceedings or a direction that leave to commence such proceedings is not required, such defendant or respondent be entitled to make no response to such service pending notification of the court’s decision in relation to those proceedings; and that time for acknowledging service or for otherwise responding to such proceedings be deemed extended accordingly;

(9)  No more than one leave application under paragraph (1) may be made by the Applicant within any period of 3 months;

(10)  This order shall cease to have effect at the end of 5 years from the date of this order; and

(11)  A copy of this Order shall be sent to the Registrar of the High Court.

Disposition 

22.The Applicant’s application for leave to apply for judicial review is dismissed.

23.A RPO in terms of paragraph 21 be made against the Applicant.  

Dated the 18^th day of March 2022.

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