Case Document

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HCAL 42/2023

[2026] HKCFI 4456

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 42 OF 2023

BETWEEN

	Ali Muhammad	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 30-year-old national of Pakistan who entered Hong Kong illegally on 28 March 2020 and was arrested by police almost 4 months later on 18 July 2020. 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 his girlfriend’s family who disapproved their relationship. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Jabbi, District Bhimber, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. After leaving school he worked as a cook in a pizza shop in his home district to make his living.

3.In 2017, he met and dated a girl from a wealthy family in the same village, but as her family did not consider the Applicant suitable for her and therefore objected to their relationship.

4.Due to her family’s objection, the Applicant and his girlfriend in mid-2018 decided to elope to Lahore to get married, but their plan was discovered by her family that they were intercepted by her elder brother and followers in Mirpur City who then beat the Applicant violently that he lost conscious before her brother tool her home.

5.After the assault the Applicant became fearful for his life and fled to Rawalpindi and then Jhelum, but in early 2019 he was again ambushed by his girlfriend’s brother and followers who attacked him with some sharp objects that he suffered cuts and bruises all over his body that he was later taken to a local hospital for medical treatments.

6.As a result the Applicant felt that it was no longer safe to remain in Pakistan, and so in March 2020 he departed for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon his subsequent arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 16 April 2021 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.

7.By a Notice of Decision dated 31 May 2021 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”).

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 his girlfriend’s family over their relationship upon his return to Pakistan 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 his girlfriend’s family to seriously harm or kill him other than to stop him seeing his girlfriend, that in any event it was a private relationship dispute between him and his girlfriend’s family 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 Pakistan with a large population of 233 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 Karachi where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

9.On 9 June 2021, 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 20 July 2022 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 5 January 2023 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.In its decision[1], the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted and rejected the credibility of his claim of fear of harm from the family of some girlfriend that disapproved of their relationship that caused him to leave his country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection when he was unable to provide any meaningful or relevant details of his claim despite being invited to do so, that his credibility was further undermined by his failure to raise his claim upon first arriving in Hong Kong until almost 4 months later and only after his arrest by the police, and that even if his account of events prior to his departure of Pakistan were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of his girlfriend’s family to seriously harm or kill him other than to deter him from seeing his girlfriend, and that in any event it was a private dispute between them without 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 away from his home district without any risk of being located by anyone that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

11.On 12 January 2023 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he put forward the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)  That the Adjudicator did not consider his claim properly and just directly dismissed it without even taking any time to think about his life;

(2)  That the Adjudicator unreasonably refused to allow him to submit his supporting documents without translation and also failed to give him time to arrange for their translations;

(3)  That the interpreter was impatient and unhelpful to him during his appeal hearing before the Board.

12.These are however just some bare and vague assertions of the Applicant without any necessary or relevant 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 consider his claim properly or to refuse to allow him to submit his documents, or in what way was the interpreter impatient or unhelpful to him at his appeal hearing before the Board. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, nor was he able to do so at the hearing of his application, I do not find any of his complaints 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 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.

15.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.

16.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.

17.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, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss his application.

Dated the 11^th day of August 2026

(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 11 August 2026 Ali Muhammad 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 11 August 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 18090 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 274/21 (formerly RBCZ 299/20) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)