Case Document

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HCAL 465/2023

[2026] HKCFI 4620

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 465 OF 2023

BETWEEN

	Marichi Cortez Guzman	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 44-year-old national of the Philippines who arrived in Hong Kong on 2 April 2014 with permission to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract on 2 April 2016 or within 14 days of its early termination, but on 1 December 2014 she was arrested by police for theft and for which she was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison for 8 months. Upon her discharge from prison and was referred to the Immigration Department for deportation, 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 family for converting her religion from Christianity to Islam and/or 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 Cardona, Dolores, Abra, the Philippines in a devout Catholic family and that she was also baptized at birth as a Catholic.

3.After leaving school she went to work in Singapore as a domestic helper, during which she befriended some Muslims and became interested in their religion of Islam by regularly joining their religious activities including reading the Koran with them.

4.In 2013 she returned to her home in the Philippines and expressed to her family her desire to become a Muslim by converting her religion to Islam and to dress in hijab and refused to eat pork, of which family became furious and accused her of disgracing the family, while her brothers also beat her severely, and that her parents subsequently locked her inside the house.

5.One day in February 2014 the Applicant managed to make her escape from her home and fled to Quezon City, and in order to get away from the threats of her family, she applied to work in Hong Kong as a foreign domestic helper, and for which she borrowed a loan from some local money-lender to meet the expenses of her application.

6.Accordingly she arrived in Hong Kong in April 2014 to start her employment and to remit money to her creditor every month for her loan instalment payments, and subsequently converted her religion to Islam, of which her family became furious that she had disgraced them and that her brothers had threatened to kill her when she returned to the Philippines.

7.As a result the Applicant became fearful of being harmed or killed by her family upon her return to her home country, and after her arrest by the police in December 2014 for theft that her employment was then terminated that she defaulted in her loan repayment and for which her creditor then made threats against her, and so after her discharge from prison for her offence and was referred to the Immigration Department for deportation, she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non‑refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 2 June 2015 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

8.By a Notice of Decision dated 19 June 2015 and a Notice of Further Decision dated 10 April 2017 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”).

9.In his decisions the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that she would be in danger of being harmed or killed by her family or her creditor upon her return to the Philippines due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from either of them, that her problems with her family and creditor were either family domestic dispute or personal monetary dispute 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 the Philippines with a large population of 107 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 or Cebu where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate her.

10.The Applicant then lodged her appeals to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the respective decisions of the Director, and while both appeals were late for being filed outside the 14-day period after the notice of the decision was given to her under Section 37ZS(1) of the Immigration Ordinance, the Board subsequently allowed the late filing of both her appeals, and for which the Applicant attended oral hearings on 10 May 2022, 13 September 2022 and 14 October 2022 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 13 January 2023 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

11.In its decision[1] the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of threats from her family over her conversion of her religion to Islam and from her creditor over her unpaid debts but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of either of them to seriously harm or kill her other than angry words and empty threats, and that in any event these were private disputes between her and her family or with 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 anyone that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

12.On 24 March 2023 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in her Form and supporting affirmation she put forward the following grounds for her intended challenge:

(1)  That the Board was in breach of procedural fairness in unlawfully fettering its discretion by refusing the Applicant’s appeal on the grounds that they did not satisfy the requirement;

(2)  That the Adjudicator acted in a procedurally unfair manner in dealing with the Applicant’s appeal;

(3)  That the Board’s decisions to refuse the Applicant’s appeal were unreasonable or irrational in the public law sense or the result of procedural errors or unfairness;

(4)  That the Board failed to meet the greater care and duty owed to a self‑represented claimant;

(5)  That the Board had significantly relied on source of news not officially recognized or were simply hearsays or outdated that the lack of credible source of information had resulted in groundless speculation that it is safe for her to return to her home country;

(6)  That it was unfair to give a decision on his BOR 2 risk without being screened for such risk;

(7)  That it was unfair that the hearing bundle was given to her just a few days before the first appeal hearing with the majority of the documents in English that she was not given sufficient time to prepare for her appeal due to her limited skill in English and without legal representation.

13.These are however mostly just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any necessary or relevant particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they apply to her 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 take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, while it is clearly incorrect for her to complain of not being screened for her BOR 2 risk as she did appear before the Board on 3 separate oral hearings during which she was able to give evidence for her claim under all the applicable grounds including BOR 2 risk, and that there is no documentary evidence to corroborate her claim of being only given the hearing bundle just a few days before her first appeal hearing on 10 May 2022 before the Board and which even if true that by the time of her 2^nd hearing on 13 September 2022 she would have had some 4 months to prepare for her appeal without any problem, and of which she never raised any issue to the Board during any of the hearings at all. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, nor was she able to do so at the hearing of her application, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for her intended challenge.

14.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.

15.In the Applicant’s case, the Board rejected her claim for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in its decision with the benefit of hearing her in her oral evidence and her answers to questions raised of her claim, and in the absence of any error of law 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 to challenge the finding of the Board.

16.Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risks of harm in the Applicant’s claim if real are localized ones 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.

17.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.

18.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 her leave application.

Dated the 18^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 18 August 2026 Marichi Cortez Guzman 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 August 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 4066 (R) Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: RBCZ 9000991/17 (Formerly RBCZ 10362/15), QA T/C 707/15 Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)