Nguyen Thi Bich Thu v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2708/2019

[2025] HKCFI 2161

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2708 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 the Applicant being absent 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 58-year-old national of Vietnam who entered Hong Kong illegally on 16 January 2014 and was arrested on 18 March 2014 for possession of a forged identity card and undertaking unauthorized employment for which she was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 months, during which she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection to the Immigration Department on the basis that if she returned to Vietnam she would be harmed or killed by her creditor over her unpaid debts. Upon her discharge from prison she was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Le Chan District, Hai Phong City, Vietnam. After leaving school she married her husband, and moved to his home in Vinh Khe Village, An Duong District, Hai Phong City where they raised a family with 2 children.

3.In 1998 she and her husband started their furniture manufacturing business in their home district, and in 2008 they expanded their business with the help of a loan borrowed from a local money-lender with monthly interest payments which they initially managed to make from their business income.

4.However, in 2012 their business started to turn bad after her husband suffered a stroke and became bedridden, and in 2013 when the Applicant defaulted with the loan repayments, the money-lender sent men to threaten her, and after being beaten by those men on several occasions with wooden sticks and water pipes resulting in cuts and bruises all over her body that required medical treatments, the Applicant in November 2013 fled from her home to hide in her mother’s place in another village, and on 25 November 2013 she departed Vietnam for China, and from there she later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon her subsequent arrest she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 14 August 2017 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 11 September 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 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”).

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 her creditor and followers 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 her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor 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 Vietnam with a large population of 95 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 creditor to locate her.

7.On 25 September 2017 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, but for which she failed to attend the scheduled oral hearing on 30 May 2019 before the Board without any explanation or any response or reply to the Board’s subsequent request for explanation or reason for her absence, nor did she request for another oral hearing before the Board, and that the Board proceeded to deal with her appeal in her absence and on papers based on the materials and information provided by her earlier to the Director and available in the hearing bundle before the Board. On 16 August 2019 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.In its decision the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence which she failed to attend the scheduled hearing to explain or clarify to the Board that it doubted the credibility of her claim of fear of harm from any creditor that caused her to leave her country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if her account of events were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only 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 alternatives for her to move safely to other parts of the country away from her home district without any risk of being located by her creditor that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.On 16 September 2019 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 or her supporting affirmation of the same date to which she just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forth any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor did she subsequently attend the scheduled hearing of her application without any explanation. As such, 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.

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 her claim even 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.

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 her application.

Dated the 29^th day of May 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