Re Ujjal Mohammad

CACV 85/2022

[2022] HKCA 1138

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

CIVIL APPEAL NO 85 OF 2022

(ON APPEAL FROM HCAL NO. 2068 of 2018)

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Before:  Hon G Lam JA and Barnes J in Court

Date of Judgment:  11 August 2022

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J U D G M E N T

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Hon Barnes J (giving the Judgment of the Court):

1.On 23 June 2022, this Court handed down our judgment[1] dismissing the applicant’s appeal against the decision of Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan (“the Judge”)  refusing him leave to apply for judicial review.  

2.By a Notice of Motion dated 27 June 2022, the applicant applied for leave to appeal against our judgment to the Court of Final Appeal.  The applicant had also lodged a written submission in support of his application. 

3.Having considered the applicant’s Notice of Motion, we see no reason to depart from the usual practice of determining applications for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on paper without an oral hearing.  We have therefore proceeded to determine the applicant’s application on the basis of his notice of motion.

4.Under section 22(1)(b)  of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, Cap. 484, leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal may be granted if the question involved in the appeal is one which, by reason of its great general or public importance, or otherwise, ought to be submitted to the Court of Final Appeal for decision.

5.The Notice of Motion stated:

“Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to [inform] the Honourable Court that there is some error in law in my decision.

Decision maker just relied on COL Information and my previous facts which were in favour while rejecting my claim. [Actual] life occur different situation then what is mentioned in COL Information.

The Officer and [Courts] prefers to ignore the overwhelming of the evidence of this violence towards minorities searching for unrealistic silver lining.  The Decision is [betray] a bias and formula approach unlikely fairly access the danger of my life and clearly not reasonable.” 

6.The written submission cited ST v BETTY KWAN & ANOR [2] and Secretary for Security v Sakthevel Prabakar [3], and submitted that high standards of fairness are required.  It also referred to authorities on the Wednesbury unreasonableness principle and contended that the Board acted in a procedurally unfair manner.  It further referred to section 37ZT of the Immigration Ordinance and argued that, in cases of late filing of notice of appeal, the Board may only take account of the (a)  the statement of reasons stated in the application for late filing of the notice of appeal and any accompanying documentary evidence; and (b)  any other relevant matters of fact within the Board’s knowledge. 

7.All the matters stated in the Notice of Motion and the written submission do not constitute grounds for granting leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.  The applicant has not, firstly, identified any questions of great general or public importance, as required by section 22(1)(b).  Secondly, we had in paragraph 14 of our Judgment pointed out that the role of the Court in a judicial review is not to provide a further avenue of appeal.  The Court will not intervene by way of judicial review unless there are errors of law or procedural unfairness or irrationality in the decision of the Board.  The complaint against the Board’s evaluation of the country of origin information is therefore misconceived.    

8.We also do not see any basis for granting leave on the “otherwise” limb under section 22(1)(b).

9.For the above reasons, the statutory requirements for giving leave to appeal are not met.  Accordingly, we dismiss the Notice of Motion.

The applicant, unrepresented, acted in person.