Nonehal Singh v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2106/2024

[2025] HKCFI 399

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2106 OF 2024

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 20-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 26 June 2024 but when he was refused entry by the Immigration Department, he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by the village head and son due to their dispute with his father over the building of a gate on his family’s land in his home village. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Bagwanpura, Tehsil Ajnala, District Amritsar, India. After leaving school he assisted his parents in their farming in his home village.

3.In early 2022 his father intended to build a gate between his family’s house and their neighbour which however led to a dispute with the village head and his son who insisted that his father had no right to do so, and after one occasion when the village head arrived with several men to threaten him, the Applicant’s father decided to stop building the gate for the time being.

4.Thereafter the Applicant went to Bahrain to work in a factory until late 2002 when he returned to his home village in India, whereupon his father decided to go ahead again to put up the gate for his house, but the village head again came with his son to try to stop the construction, during which they assaulted the Applicant and his father by punching and kicking them that caused them to suffer cuts and bruises all over their body.   

5.After the assault the Applicant became fearful for his safety and fled to a neighbouring village to take shelter in an aunt’s place, and on 7 June 2024 he departed India for Hong Kong, and when he was refused entry he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 22 July 2024 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).             

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 12 August 2024 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”).

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 his village head and son upon his return to India 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 deter him and his father from building the gate, that in any event it was a private dispute between his father and the village head only 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 1.4 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 young adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Mumbai where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

8.On 26 August 2024 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 14 October 2024 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 22 October 2024 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.In its decision the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted the credibility of his claim of fear of harm from his village head and son that caused him to leave his country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if his claim were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him over what was clearly a private dispute between his father and the village head only 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 alternatives for him to move safely to other parts of the country away from his home district without any risk of being located by anyone that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

10.On 12 November 2024 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)  That the Board reached the decision wrongly in assessing his non-refoulement claim as the decision was not fair or reasonable as required by the Wednesbury test in failing to recognize that his life must be protected by the criminal law from extra-judicial killings that he may face if deported back to his home country;

(2)  That the Board failed to appreciate or place proper or sufficient weight or importance to the presence of State Acquiescence in his case which led to an unfair outcome of rejecting his claim;

(3)  That the Board’s failure to take such argument into account is a clear case of unfair attitude shown by the Board which is in itself enough to render the decision void;

(4)  That the reasoning process in the Board’s decision is internally inconsistent and logically flawed that the decision is unlawful on the ground of irrationality.          

11.These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any necessary or relevant 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 was the decision unfair or unreasonable or that the Adjudicator had acted procedurally unfair or irrational, or what relevancy were state acquiescence or extra-judicial killings to the Applicant’s case when on the factual basis of even his own case that it was a private dispute between his father and the village head only without any official involvement or political element at all. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, nor was he able to do so at the hearing of his application, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable 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 decisions that the risk of harm in his claim even 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.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.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 11^th day of February 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