Ano Maribeth Lopez v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 35/2024

[2026] HKCFI 3696

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 35 OF 2024

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

Order by Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan:

The application for leave to apply for Judicial Review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 41-year-old national of the Philippines who last arrived in Hong Kong on 3 September 2018 with permission to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her last employment was prematurely terminated on 13 January 2022, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police on 26 April 2023. 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 the Philippines she would be harmed or killed by her creditor for failing to repay her debts. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Loacan, Itogon, Benguet, the Philippines. After leaving school she married her husband and raised a family with 2 children in her home district.

3.To help supplement her family income the Applicant in 2017 went to Qatar to work as a domestic helper before coming to Hong Kong in 2018 to work as a foreign domestic helper, and to pay for her agency fees and expenses she borrowed a loan from some finance company to be repaid by monthly instalments with interests, which she did from her monthly income earned from her employment in Hong Kong.    

4.However, after her last employment was prematurely terminated on 13 January 2022, she was unable to repay her debts, her creditor started to send men to her home in the Philippines to look for her and threatened her family that they would kill her when she returned to the Philippines, and so she overstayed in Hong Kong, 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 18 May 2023 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.             

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 6 July 2023 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 all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from her creditor upon her return to the Philippines as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from her creditor, 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”) shows that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in the Philippines with a large population of 116 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 300,000 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 Manila where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

7.On 18 July 2023 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which she attended an oral hearing on 20 November 2023 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 22 December 2023 her 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 of harm from her creditor over her outstanding 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 the Philippines 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 4 January 2024 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 forward any proper ground for her intended challenge. 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.

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 if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part of the Philippines, 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.Moreover, the Applicant has recently in writing requested to withdraw her application as her issues in her home country have been resolved that she now wants to return to the Philippines as soon as possible.

14.As I am for the given reasons not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, and in view of her latest confirmation of no more issue for her to return to her home country, I accordingly dismiss her leave application.

Dated the 6^th day of July 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