Muhammad Naveed v. Torture Claims Appeal Board/ Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office

HCAL 1775/2020

[2026] HKCFI 260

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No. 1775 of 2020

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 (Non-refoulement Claims) Teresa Wu:

1.  Form 86 be amended, naming the Director of Immigration as the Putative Interested Party.

2.  The application herein for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

Introduction

1.By Form 86 filed on 4 September 2020, the Applicant seeks leave to apply for judicial review (“the Leave Application”) of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non‑refoulement Claims Petition Office (“the Board”) dated 2 September 2020 (“the Board’s Decision”), affirming the decision of the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) dated 27 May 2020 (“the Director’s Decision”), which rejected his non-refoulement claim on all applicable grounds under the Unified Screening Mechanism (USM).

Background

2.The material facts of this case, including the Applicant’s personal background, the incidents he relied to allege that he would be harmed or killed by Muhammad Ikram and the Pakistan Muslim League (Noon) (PML(N)), the immigration aspects, and the procedural history, have been comprehensively set out in the Board’s Decision. It is therefore unnecessary to repeat them in full. For completeness, reference may be made to the Board’s Decision, the hyperlinked version of which is included below[1]. Unless otherwise specified, I shall also adopt the Board’s abbreviations and descriptions herein.

Discussion

3.In Form 86, the Applicant has raised the following matters in support of his intended application for judicial review of the Board’s Decision:

“…I believe that the Director of Immigration and the Adjudicator of Appeal Board reached the decision wrongly in assessing my Non-refoulement Claims. The decisions were not reasonable and fair (as required by the Wednesbury test). Indeed, the right to life is protected under Article 28 of the Basic Law and Article 2 of the Bill of Rights. In practice, the right to life is mainly protected by the criminal law and it must be protected from extra-judicial killings that I may face if I am deported back to my country.”

4.Having considered the matters raised, I am not satisfied that any of them is reasonably arguable with any realistic prospects of success (see Peter Po Fun Chan v Winnie Cheung & Another (2007) 10 HKCFAR 676).

5.First, the Applicant seeks leave to challenge the decision of the Board, not that of the Director. The Director’s Decision is not open to challenge in these proceedings in any event, and any matters advanced in relation to it must therefore be disregarded (see Re Moshsin Ali [2018] HKCA 549 at §45; Salvador Eric Garcia v Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office & Another [2020] HKCFI 166 at §14; Re Jyoti Gurung [2022] HKCA 1884 at §13).

6.The remaining matters raised by the Applicant are, in essence, directed at challenging the Board’s findings of facts, which may be summarized in gist as follows:

(1)  The Board was of the view that most, if not all, of the core assertions advanced by the Applicant in support of his non-refoulement claim had been fabricated or were wholly unreliable. In particular, his alleged profile as an active and prominent political supporter of the PTI had been exaggerated to a significant degree, and there was no credible evidence that he had urged 1,500 villagers to vote for Imran Khan in 2013.

(2)  The Board rejected and did not accept that the Applicant’s very limited political activity in 2013 had placed him at risk of harm, nor that it had produced effects lasting for years so as to form the basis of his subsequent claim.

(3)  For cumulative reasons, the Board did not accept that the Applicant was a credible or reliable witness.

(4)  There was no reliable evidence that the Applicant’s alleged attackers had any connections with public officials.

(5)  There was no reliable evidence that any public official, or any person able to wield the authority of the government or the state, had any connection with the alleged perpetrator.

(6)  There was no evidence that the government, the state, or any other authorities in Pakistan had acquiesced in the alleged ill-treatment of the Applicant.

(7)  There was no reliable evidence that the Applicant had suffered physical or mental harm of the requisite severity.

(8)  There was no reliable evidence that the alleged perpetrators ill-treated the Applicant with an intention falling within the definition of torture.

(9)  There was no reliable evidence to show that the state or government of Pakistan was unwilling or unable to afford protection to the Applicant.

(10)  There was no evidence to show that the state or government of Pakistan was unwilling to assist the Applicant for any Convention reason.

7.As the Applicant bore the burden of proving that his fear was well-founded, it was incumbent upon him to provide objective grounds demonstrating a real chance that the claimed fears were material. However, he failed to do so. Accordingly, he could not establish that his right to life would be unprotected, or that he would face a real risk of extra-judicial killings if returned to his country.

8.Based on the above findings, the Board rejected the Applicant’s claim founded upon the Persecution Risk, BOR 2 Risk, BOR 3 Risk, and the Torture Risk.

9.These factual findings lay exclusively within the province of the Board. The evaluation of the risk of harm was, in substance, a matter for the Board, which was entitled to undertake that assessment on the basis of the evidence available. In doing so, the Board correctly set out the burden and standard of proof under the law, applied the relevant legal principles, and observed a high standard of fairness. It is well-established that the role of the Court in a judicial review is not to provide a further avenue of appeal (see 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).

10.Having subjected the Board’s Decision to rigorous examination and anxious scrutiny, and applying the enhanced standard required by law, I am not persuaded that the Applicant has sufficiently established any error of law, procedural unfairness, or irrationality on the part of the Board. In particular, the Applicant has not shown that the Board’s Decision was Wednesbury unreasonable or otherwise unfair in the circumstances as alleged.

Conclusion

11.For these reasons, I dismiss the Leave Application.

Dated the 15^th day of January 2026

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