Gurjit Singh v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2016/2020

[2024] HKCFI 1457

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2016 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 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 33-year-old national of India who last arrived in Hong Kong on 24 July 2013 but when he was refused entry by the Immigration Department, he raised a torture claim on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by the local supporters of the political party Indian National Congress (“INC”) as he supported their rival Shiromani Akali Dal (“SAD”), and after his torture claim was rejected, he then sought non-refoulement protection on the same basis. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Jakkopur Kalan, Shahkot City, District Jalandhar, Punjab, India. After leaving school he worked as a farmer in his home district, and followed his family’s tradition to support SAD regularly attended their local meetings and activities without holding any official post in the party.

3.One day in 2012 during a local election in his home village, the Applicant saw 4 INC supporters trying to cheat by casting their votes twice at the voting booths, and when he confronted them, those men angrily pushed him away, and then proceeded to punch and kick him violently until they were restrained by other villagers and then they fled from the scene.

4.After the incident whenever the Applicant ran into those 4 INC supporters in the village, they would utter threats against him, and so the Applicant became concerned for his safety and left his home village to take shelter in various places of his relatives, and on 4 June 2013 departed India for Hong Kong, but was returned to India on the same day after he was refused entry by the Hong Kong Immigration Department.

5.However, in July 2013 when he attended a council election in his home village in support of the SAD candidate, the Applicant and his fellow SAD supporters were attacked by a group of the local INC supporters with wooden sticks that he suffered cuts and bruises all over his body but managed to flee from the scene without further serious injuries.

6.After the assault the Applicant again fled from his home village for Noormahal to hide in his paternal aunt’s place and then to Jalandhar, and on 24 July 2013 he again departed India for Hong Kong, and when he was again refused entry, he raised his torture claim, and after it was rejected, he then sought non-refoulement protection, for which he completed a Supplementary Claim Form (“SCF”) on 24 October 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 24 December 2018 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all the remaining applicable grounds other than torture risk including 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 assessed the level of risk of harm from those local INC supporters upon his return to India 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 him or any political reason for them to specifically target him for harm given that he was just an ordinary SAD supporter without holding any official post in the party, that in any event 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 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 areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as New Delhi or Mumbai where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

9.On 8 January 2019 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, but for which he failed to attend the scheduled oral hearing without explanation that the Board proceeded to deal with his appeal in his absence and on paper. On 28 August 2020 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.In its decision the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s case as provided in the hearing bundle but which he failed to attend the scheduled hearing to clarify and explain that it doubted the credibility of his claim of fear of harm from those local INC supporters that caused him to leave his home country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if his claimed risk were real that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of any INC supporter to seriously harm or kill him or any political reason for them to do so given that he was just an ordinary SAD supporter without any official post in the party, and that in any event in the absence of 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 alternatives for him to move safely to other parts of the country away from his home district without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

11.On 7 October 2020 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form or his supporting affirmation of the same date to which he just attached a copy of the Board’s decision but without putting forth 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 correctly established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in his claim if real 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.Moreover, the Applicant recently in writing requested to withdraw his application as he now wants to return to his home country and that it is safe for him to do so.

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 it is now safe for him to return to his home country, I accordingly dismiss his leave application.

Dated the 4^th day of June 2024

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