Case Document

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HCAL 1554/2020

[2025] HKCFI 4310

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1554 OF 2020

BETWEEN
	Taithaisong Aroonroj	Applicant
	and
	Torture Claims Appeal Board	Putative Respondent
	and
	Director of Immigration	Putative Interested Party

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:

Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 38-year-old national of Thailand who last arrived in Hong Kong on 21 April 2018 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 21 May 2018 when she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police more than 1 year later on 23 June 2019. After she was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, she raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Thailand she would be harmed or killed by her creditor over her unpaid debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. After leaving school she worked as a freelance singer in her home district to make her living.

3.In 2014 she together with her sister and a friend invested in a project to build a resort with 10 bungalows in Maetaeng, Chiangmai, and to meet her share of the investment capital the Applicant borrowed a loan from a local money-lender in July 2016 to be repaid within 1 year with interests, whereupon they spent part of the capital on the purchase of the land for the resort, and gave the remaining capital money to the contractor for building the bungalows.

4.However, by April 2017 the contractor had used up all the capital but had completed only 2 bungalows, and as they had no more money to continue with the project, their friend decided to pull out of the project, and so the Applicant and her sister had no choice but to terminate the project.

5.By July 2017, when the Applicant defaulted with the repayment of her loan, her creditor started to send men to threaten her, and after being beaten by those men in December 2017 with a warning that they would kill her next time if she still failed to repay her loan, the Applicant became fearful for her life and departed Thailand on 24 December 2017 for China and then Hong Kong before returning to Thailand in February 2018.

6.On 28 March 2018, she departed Thailand again for Hong Kong and then China, and on 21 April 2018 she travelled to Hong Kong again and eventually overstayed, and upon her subsequent arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 9 October 2019 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.

7.By a Notice of Decision dated 29 November 2019, 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”).

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 her creditor and followers upon her return to Thailand 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 Thailand with a large population of 68 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 513,000 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 where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

9.On 12 December 2019, the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which the Board did not hold any oral hearing and proceeded to deal with her appeal in her absence and on papers based on the material and information earlier supplied by her to the Director and were available in the hearing bundle before the Board. On 8 June 2020, her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.In its decision[1] the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of harm from her creditor over her unpaid debts but found 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 Thailand 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.

11.On 23 July 2020, 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 in which she just repeated her claim as before but without putting forth any proper ground for her intended challenge, nor did she request any oral hearing for her application. 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 of the Board’s decision.

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 her claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of Thailand, there is simply no justification to afford her 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 her application.

Dated the 18^th day of September 2025

	(Klein Tse) for Registrar, High Court

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

Notes for the Applicant: If leave has been granted, the Applicant or the Applicant’s solicitors must:
a) serve on the respondent and such interested parties as may be directed by the Court the order granting leave and any directions given within 14 days after the leave was granted (Order 53, rule 4A); b) issue the originating summons within 14 days after the grant of leave and serve it in accordance with Order 53, rule 5; and c) supply to every other party copies of every affidavit which the Applicant proposes to use at the hearing, including the affidavit in support of the application for leave (Order 53, rule 6(5)).		Sent to the Applicant on 18 September 2025 Taithaisong Aroonroj Applicant’s ref. no.: Nil.		Sent to the Putative Respondent / the Putative Respondent’s solicitors / such Putative Interested Parties as may be directed by the Court / the Putative Interested Parties’ solicitors on 18 September 2025 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 16584/19/12/50/TH58 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 911/19 (formerly RBCZ/10638/19)(T2I114) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)