Case Document

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HCAL 12/2021

[2025] HKCFI 5079

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 12 OF 2021

BETWEEN
	Hussain Bilal	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;

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 39-year-old national of Pakistan who entered Hong Kong illegally on 26 March 2015 and was arrested by police on 27 March 2015. 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 Pakistan he would be harmed or killed by certain local Shia Muslims in his home village for religious reason as he was a Sunni Muslim. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised as a Sunni Muslim in Village Odherwal, Tehsil & District Chakwal, Punjab, Pakistan. After leaving school he worked as a computer operator to make his living, and regularly prayed in the local mosques where he also preached Sunni Islam in his home village.

3.However, the majority of the villagers were Shia Muslims that some of them were hostile towards the Sunni villagers including the Applicant due to their religious disputes, and after being threatened and attacked by them on several occasions, the Applicant left his home village to move to Attock City.

4.In early 2015 while riding on his motor bike on the road, the Applicant was shot at by some unknown man with a gun, and although he was not injured the Applicant felt it was no longer safe to remain in Pakistan, and so on 13 March 2015 he departed 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 1 June 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 20 July 2018 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 found no substantial grounds for believing that he would be harmed or killed by the local Shia Muslims upon his return to Pakistan due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no reliable evidence that he had ever been specifically targeted by those local Shia Muslims other than his own speculations, that in fact Shia Muslims are of the minority in Pakistan while his Sunni Muslims are the majority that it is not accepted that he would face any more risk than the rest of the Sunni population upon his return to Pakistan, 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 Pakistan with a large population of 205 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 796,000 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 Lahore or Islamabad where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

7.On 30 July 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 15 April 2020 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 22 December 2020, his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.In its decision[1], the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of threats from the local Shia Muslims in his home village due to religious differences as he is a Sunni Muslim but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of any of them to seriously harm or kill him or to specifically target him for harm, that in fact according to relevant COI that it was often the minority Shia Muslims who would be at risk of being harmed by the majority Sunni Muslims within the country, 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 Pakistan as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for him to move safely to other parts of the country with large Sunni populations and away from his home village without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.On 5 January 2021, 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, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he attached what he claimed at the subsequent hearing of his application to be documentary evidence in support of his claim but all were in Urdu without English translation, and which he confirmed at the hearing have never previously been submitted to the Director or the Board for their assessment or determination. As such, I refuse to take any of them into consideration, and that 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 in his Form or at the hearing, 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 Board rejected his claim for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in its decision with the benefit of hearing him in his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim, and in the absence of any error of law 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 to challenge the finding of the Board.

12.Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Pakistan, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

13.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.

14.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 28^th day of October 2025

(Chung Lai Fan, Christine)
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 28 October 2025 Hussain Bilal 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 28 October 2025 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 12687/18/7/437/P2465 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 1918/18 (formerly RBCZ 11097/15) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)