Case Document

100%Judiciary

HCAL 347/2019

[2022] HKCFI 1000

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO. 347 OF 2019

BETWEEN

	Dontogan Loida Tercero	Applicant
	and
	Torture Claims Appeal Board	Putative Respondent
	and
	Director of Immigration	Putative Interested Party

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 / 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 53-year-old national of the Philippines who last arrived in Hong Kong on 18 February 2010 with permission to continue to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract on 15 September 2010 or within 14 days of its early termination, but upon the expiration of her contract on 15 September 2010, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and more than 4 years later on 16 February 2015 she surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if she returned to the Philippines she would be harmed or killed by her creditor over her outstanding debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Lepanto Mankayan, Benguet Province, the Philippines. After leaving school she first came to Hong Kong in 1986 to work as a foreign domestic helper.

3.In 1997 she returned to her home in the Philippines to be with her parents. In 2004 she borrowed a loan from a local money lender intending to start a business of selling clothes, but when her father later developed cancer, she had to use the money to meet his medical expenses as well as for his funeral after he passed away, and when she was unable to repay her loan, she therefore returned to work in Hong Kong in 2008 to earn to repay her loan by monthly instalments from her salary, but after her last employment was completed in September 2010 and she was unable to find new employment and hence was unable to repay her loan, she became afraid of being harmed or killed by her creditor upon her return to the Philippines, and so she overstayed in Hong Kong until February 2015 when she surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 12 January 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

4.By a Notice of Decision dated 5 February 2018 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 her 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 found no substantial grounds for believing that she would be in danger of being harmed or killed by her creditor upon her return to the Philippines due to the absence of any past ill-treatment from her creditor, that in any event it was a private monetary 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 the Philippines with a large population of 102 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 300,000 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 the Philippines away from her home district in large cities such as Manila where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

6.The Applicant then lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she attended an oral hearing on 20 November 2018 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 1 February 2019 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

7.In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s evidence as to her alleged debts due to her creditor and her intention to stay in Hong Kong to avoid being harmed by her creditor over her debts but found in the absence of any official involvement that it was just a private monetary dispute between them that state/police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to the Philippines as well as reasonable internal relocation for her to move safely to other area away from her home district without any risk of being located that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

8.On 8 February 2019 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in her Form, and in her supporting affidavitof the same date she just stated that the decision disregarded her dangerous situation but without providing any details or particulars or elaborations as to how it did so, nor did she request any oral hearing for her application. As such and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in her 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 her 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 fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in her claim is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of the Philippines, there is simply no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

11.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.

12.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 her leave application.

Dated the 7^th day of April 2022.

(K.H. LI)
for Registrar, High Court

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

Notes for the Applicant: If leave has been granted, the Applicant or his solicitors must:
a) serve on the respondent and such interested parties as may be directed by the Court the order granting leave and any directions given within 14 days after the leave was granted (Order 53, rule 4A); b) issue the originating summons within 14 days after the grant of leave and serve it in accordance with Order 53, rule 5; and c) supply to every other party copies of every affidavit which the Applicant proposes to use at the hearing, including the affidavit in support of the application for leave (Order 53, rule 6(5)).		Sent to the Applicant on 7 April 2022 Dontogan Loida Tercero Applicant’s ref. no.: Nil.		Sent to the Putative Respondent / the Putative Respondent’s solicitors / such Putative Interested Parties as may be directed by the Court / the Putative Interested Parties’ solicitors on 7 April 2022 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 10394/18/2/278/F578 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 3598/17 (Formerly RBCZ 11576/15) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)