Md Mahbubur Rahman v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2504/2019

[2023] HKCFI 1142

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2504 OF 2019

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:

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

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 52-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 26 June 2015 and was arrested by police on 9 July 2015. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by some local supporters of the political party Awami League (“AL”) as he supported their rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”). He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Kandal, Comilla, Bangladesh. After leaving school he ran his own grocery store in his home village, got married and raised a family with 2 children, and supported BNP by regularly attended their local meetings and rallies.

3.During the 2014 General Election, the Applicant and his fellow BNP supporters frequently came into violent conflicts with the local AL supporters, and after AL won the election and became the ruling party, those local AL supporters started to harass and intimidate the BNP supporters including the Applicant which led to many violent clashes between them, and after some of his friends and fellow supporters were seriously injured or killed during such clashes, the Applicant became fearful for his life and fled to a neighbouring village at Noakhali.

4.However, after he was again attacked by those AL supporters, the Applicant felt it was no longer safe to remain in Bangladesh, and so he fled to Dhaka where he subsequently on 12 June 2015 departed for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon his arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 11 September 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 24 October 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 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 those local AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence that the Applicant was specifically targeted by them or of any reason or intention of them to seriously harm or kill him given that he was just an ordinary BNP supporter without holding any official post in the party, that in the absence of 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 Bangladesh with a large population of 157 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 148,000 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 country away from his home district in large cities such as Dhaka where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

7.On 2 November 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 15 April 2019 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 20 August 2019 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.In its decision the Board found the Applicant’s evidence given at his appeal hearing vague and inconsistent and with significant new claims and non-persuasive explanations that he was not considered as a credible witness and rejected his claim of fear of harm from those local AL supporters that caused him to leave his country for Hong Kong, and that in any event in the absence of any state or official involvement that state/police protection would be available to him upon his return to Bangladesh as well as reasonable internal relocation for him to move safely to other part of the country without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.On 29 August 2019 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)  Procedural unfairness in that the Board had unlawfully fettered its discretion by refusing the Applicant’s appeal on the grounds that they did not satisfy the requirements;

(2)  Procedural unfairness in that the Adjudicator acted in a procedurally unfair manner in dealing with the Applicant’s appeal;

(3)  Procedural unfairness in that the Board’s decisions to refuse the Applicant’s appeal were unreasonable or irrational in the public law sense or the result of procedural errors or unfairness;

(4)  Procedural unfairness in the Board’s failing to meet the greater care and duty owed to a self-represented claimant;

(5)  That it was unfair that the Applicant was not given an opportunity to put forward his submissions in an oral hearing nor was he invited to submit written submissions or the opportunity to reply to the Director’s submissions;

(6)  That the Board had significantly relied on source of news not officially recognized or were simply hearsay or outdated which resulted in some groundless speculations that it would be safe for the Applicant to return to his home country.

10.These are however all just broad and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they apply to his case or how the Board or the Adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way did the Board unlawfully fetter its discretion or act in a procedurally unfair manner, or what COI that it relied on were unofficially recognized or were hearsay or outdated, or how was it that the Applicant was not given any opportunity to make his submissions during the hearing of his appeal when the record clearly shows that the Applicant was given ample opportunity to do so with the assistance of an interpreter (see [8] of the Board’s decision). As such I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.

11.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.

12.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 25 – 47 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.

13.The fact is that it has also been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective 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 Bangladesh, 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.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.

15.Furthermore, the Applicant recently filed an affirmation requesting to withdraw his application as all his problems in his home country have now been resolved and that he wants to return home to Bangladesh.

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

Dated the 12^th day of May 2023.

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