Rubel Sheikh v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2159/2019

[2025] HKCFI 136

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2159 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;

Order by Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan:

Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 36-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 21 April 2014 and was arrested by police on the same day. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain 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 Char Khankhanapur Mollick Danga, PO Khankhanapur, District Rajbari, Bangladesh. After leaving school he worked as a salesman in a garment shop in his home district, and supported BNP regularly attended their local meetings and activities without holding any official post in the party.

3.In 2013 he started to receive invitations from AL to join their party, and when he refused, some of their supporters then threatened and harassed him by coming to his home looking for him, and on one occasion in December 2013 when they could not find him at home, they then threatened his family and vandalized the house.

4.After AL won the 2014 general election, their local supporters became even more aggressive towards BNP supporters, and after one occasion when they came to his shop to threaten him, the Applicant became fearful for his safety and fled to Dhaka, and on 30 March 2014 he departed Bangladesh 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 16 October 2015 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 26 February 2016 and a Notice of Further Decision dated 10 February 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”).

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, that there is no evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him other than to harass him as common between supporters of rival political parties, 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 Bangladesh with a large population of 169 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 areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Dhaka where he had stayed without incidents and where it would be difficult if not impossible for those local AL supporters to locate him.

7.On 8 March 2016 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision as well as the subsequent Further Decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 28 February 2017 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 26 July 2019, his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.In its decision the Board found no reliable evidence of any real intention of those local AL supporters to seriously harm or kill the Applicant other than to harass and intimidate him as common between supporters of rival political parties in Bangladesh, nor is there any political reason for them to specifically target him given that he was just an ordinary BNP 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 Bangladesh 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.

9.On 29 July 2019 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 in which he just asserted that the decision was unreasonable and that the Board had failed to consider his claim properly but without providing any necessary or relevant details or elaboration as to how it did so, nor did he put forth any proper ground for his intended challenge at the hearing of his application. 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 of the Board’s decision.

10.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.

11.In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been 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 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.

12.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.

13.For all these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss his application.

Dated the 3^rd day of January 2025

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