Md Sujon v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 2694/2019

[2025] HKCFI 2549

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2694 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 53-year-old national of Bangladesh who last arrived in Hong Kong on 10 April 2005 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 24 April 2005 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police on 9 October 2006 for which he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 months. After he was discharged from prison and was referred to the Immigration Department for deportation, he raised a torture claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by his paternal uncle over their land dispute in his home village, and after it was rejected, he then sought non-refoulement protection on the same basis. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim but had repeatedly failed to report on his recognizances and was re-arrested, which eventually led to his detention at the Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre (“CIC”).

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Nayan Kanda, District Munshigonj, Bangladesh until 1983 when he and his family moved to Village Rajshahi where he subsequently inherited his father’s farmland after his father’s death in 1993 but which was coveted by his paternal uncle.

3.In 1995 his uncle made some false charges to the police against the Applicant which led to his arrest and interrogation for 3 days until his subsequent release on bail and was able to return to his home.

4.Shortly thereafter his uncle came with his men armed with guns to look for the Applicant who however managed to make his escape after having been warned by a friend in advance, and that he then fled to Dhaka to hide in his friend’s place.

5.About a year later his uncle came to the Applicant in Dhaka to demand for the transfer of the farmland to him, and threatened to kill the Applicant if he refused to do so, whereupon the Applicant fled to Islamput and then to Uttara in Dhaka where he stayed for 6 years without further incidents.

6.However, as he still feared of being located by his uncle, the Applicant on 10 April 2005 departed Bangladesh for Hong Kong where he overstayed, and upon his subsequent arrest by the police he raised his torture claim to the Immigration Department, and after it was rejected he then sought non-refoulement protection, for which he completed a Supplementary Claim Form (“SCF”) on 25 May 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 15 June 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 found no substantial grounds for believing that there will be any real or substantial risk of him being harmed or killed by his uncle upon his return to Bangladesh due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from his uncle, that there is no evidence of any real intention of his uncle to seriously harm or kill him or that there would still be any adverse interest in him after all these years since he left the country in 2005, that in any event it was a private land dispute between the 2 of them 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 Bangladesh with a large population of 157 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 before for years without incidents and where it would be difficult if not impossible for his uncle to locate him.

9.On 19 June 2018 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 30 July 2019 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 16 August 2019 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.In its decision the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of threats from his paternal uncle over their land dispute in his home village but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of his uncle to seriously harm or kill him, and that in any event it was a private land dispute between them within their family only without 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 by his uncle that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

11.On 16 September 2019 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward various grounds for his intended challenge, of which he confirmed at the hearing as follows:

(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 without realizing that he was tortured at the behest of the state law enforcement agencies and politicians that the state would be rendered liable to the Applicant by cause of the state and its public officials failing to provide reasonable protection for its citizens under the duty of due diligence;

(3)  That the Adjudicator acted unreasonable and was procedurally unfair by placing too much reliance on COI but failed to take into account the Applicant’s personal background and experience in assessing his claim;

(4)  That the Board had listed relevant COI which supported the Applicant’s aversions that the police in his country would not be able to protect but failed to consider or give sufficient weight to such evidence and instead ruled otherwise against the Applicant’s case which was a clear case of unfair attitude shown by the Board which in itself is enough to render its decision void;

(5)  That the Board failed to attain the high standard of fairness required by the Wednesbury test in failing to take into account the Applicant’s argument that corruption and incompetency of the administration in the Applicant’s country is still a very serious problem as various human rights organizations had compiled reports that stated testament to the Applicant’s assertions;

(6)  That the Adjudicator was procedurally improper and unfair when assessing whether or not to accept the Applicant’s explanations and unreasonably required him to respond to questions that he was not in a position to offer any response;

(7)  That the Adjudicator failed to take into account the nexus of political parties and official corruption which exist in the Applicant’s country making the persecution of the Applicant effectively persecution by the State;

(8)  That the Adjudicator made a ruling to dismiss the Applicant’s appeal based on findings which the Adjudicator ought to allow and thus the decision was irrational.

12.These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any relevant or necessary 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 how did the Adjudicator fail to take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or what relevancy were state acquiescence or extra-judicial killings to the Applicant’s case or what evidence is there to suggest that the Applicant has ever been tortured by law enforcement agencies or politicians when on the factual basis of even his own case that it was a private land dispute between him and his uncle 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, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.

13.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.

14.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.

15.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.

16.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 17^th day of June 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