Bui Thi Nguyet v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 1264/2021

[2023] HKCFI 2532

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1264 OF 2021

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 43-year-old national of Vietnam who entered Hong Kong illegally on 25 May 2020 and was arrested by police on 27 June 2020. After she was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, she raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if she returned to Vietnam she would be harmed or killed by her creditors over her unpaid debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Ha Long City, Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam. After leaving school she worked in the market selling fruits and vegetables, married her husband and raised a family with 2 children in her home district.

3.In 2015 she discovered that her husband was having an affair with another woman which led to frequent quarrels and fights between them, and one day in May 2018 during a fight between them which caused their house to be burnt down by accident.

4.In order to repair the house and to meet their family’s expenses, the Applicant borrowed loans from 2 local money-lenders with monthly interest payments until discharge of the loans, which she managed to do initially.

5.However, in 2020 when she was unable to repay her loans at the demands of her creditors who then sent their followers to threaten the Applicant, and after she was severely beaten by those men on several occasions, the Applicant became fearful for her safety, and so she fled to Hai Phong City to take shelter in a friend’s place, and on 21 May 2020 she departed Vietnam for China, and from there she later sneaked into Hong Kong, and after her arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 14 December 2020 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 23 February 2021 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”).

7.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 her creditors upon her return to Vietnam as low 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 the Applicant other than to press her for repayments of her loans, that in any event they were private monetary disputes 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 Vietnam with a large population of 98 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 331,000 square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from her home district in large cities such as Ho Chi Minh City where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditors to locate her.

8.On 5 March 2021 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she attended an oral hearing on 13 July 2021 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 6 August 2021 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.In its decision the Board found inconsistencies discrepancies and implausibility in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted her claim of fear of harm from her creditors that caused her to leave her home country to come to Hong Kong for protection, and that in any event even if her claims were true that they were private monetary disputes between them without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Vietnam as well as reasonable internal relocation for her to move safely to other part of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.On 9 September 2021 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 affirmation of the same date she just stated that the Board’s decision has been reached unfairly without allowing her an opportunity to clarify her case and situation but without specifying what is it in her case or situation that she had wanted to clarify before the Board when in fact that she did attend an oral hearing before the Board during which she was able to fully and properly present her case to the Board with the assistance of an interpreter. As such I do not find any merits in this complaint of hers, 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 either.

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

13.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.

14.Moreover, the Applicant recently wrote to request to withdraw her application as her problem in her home country has already been resolved that she now wants to return to Vietnam.

15.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 her latest confirmation of no problem returning to her home country, I accordingly dismiss her leave application.

Dated the 5^th day of October 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