Mohammad Julfikar v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 183/2020

[2022] HKCFI 2981

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 183 of 2020

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:

The application for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 39-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 30 March 2015 as a visitor with permission to remain up to 13 April 2015 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and on 15 April 2015 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by his wife’s father for marrying her without his consent and for causing her to change her religion. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised as a Sunni Muslim in a village in Moli, Tehri, Uttarakhand, India. After leaving school he worked as a cook in Delhi, and in 2004 started to court a girl in his home village from a Hindu family which they kept as a secret from her family due to their different religions.

3.In 2008 they secretly got married without her parents’ knowledge or consent, and his wife then converted her religion to Islam, but when it was later discovered by her family, her father became furious and threatened to kill the Applicant, and so they fled from their home village to move to Mumbai.

4.However, one day in 2009 the Applicant was tracked down by his wife’s father in Mumbai who together with some men assaulted him by punching and kicking him violently that he was later taken to a hospital for medical treatments.

5.Upon his discharge from hospital, the Applicant moved his family to Agra, and then to Japur, but in 2013 he was arrested by police over a complaint made by her father that he had kidnapped his daughter, and was only released after he had shown the police their marriage certificate, and was advised by the police to leave Japur to avoid further confrontations with her father.

6.The Applicant therefore fled to Delhi, but when he was later in February 2015 again located by his wife’s father who again together with his men attacked him who however managed to make his escape, but as he felt it was no longer safe to remain in India, the Applicant therefore departed on 30 March 2015 for Hong Kong and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 24 March 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

7.By a Notice of Decision dated 27 April 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”).

8.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 there will be any real and substantial risk of him being harmed or killed by his wife’s father and followers upon his return to India due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him, that in any event it was a private family 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 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 adult with working experience to move to other part of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Chandigarh or Kolkata where it would be difficult if not impossible for his wife’s father to locate him.

9.On 10 May 2018 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 5 September 2019 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 13 January 2020 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the decision of the Director.

10.In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of disputes with his wife’s parents over their marriage without their consent and his wife’s subsequent change of her religion to Islam against their wish that he moved his family from place to place to avoid his in-laws, but doubted the credibility of his evidence of being attacked by his wife’s father as inconsistent and exaggerated, and found in any event that it was a private family feud between them without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to India as well as reasonable internal relocation for him to move safely to other part of the country without any risk of being located by anyone that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

11.On 17 January 2020 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking was given in his Form, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forward any proper ground for his intended challenge. 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.

12.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.

13.In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decision that the risk of harm in his claim is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of India, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

14.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.

15.Furthermore, the Applicant recently on 19 August 2022 filed an affirmation requesting to withdraw his application as his problem has been resolved and that he wants to return to his home country.

16.In the premises, as I am for the reasons given not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and given his latest confirmation that he now has no problem returning to his home country, I accordingly dismiss his leave application.

Dated the 29^th day of September 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