Case Document

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HCAL 1301/2023

[2026] HKCFI 4706

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1301 OF 2023

BETWEEN

	Sogno Maria Estela Edradan	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 (Order 53, rule 3)

Following:

consideration of the documents only; or

consideration of the documents and oral submissions by the applicant or counsel in open court;

Order by Deputy High Court Judge Michael WONG:

1. On this court’s own motion, the name of the putative respondent be amended to “Torture Claims Appeal Board”, and the name of the putative interested party be amended to “Director of Immigration”.

2. The applicant’s application for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the applicant:

The Leave Application

1.By way of Form 86 dated and filed on 28 July 2023, the applicant applied for leave to apply for judicial review (“the Leave Application”) in respect of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) dated 19 July 2023 (“the Board’s Decision”). The Board’s Decision can be viewed in the following hyperlink:-

https://legalref.judiciary.hk/doc/judg/html/vetted/other/en/2023/HCAL001301_2023_files/the_Board's_Decision.pdf

2.The Board found that the applicant’s claim for non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong failed on all the applicable grounds under the Unified Screening Mechanism (“the USM”). Hence, the Board affirmed the decision of the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) dated 29 September 2022, which rejected the applicant’s non-refoulement claim.

Amendments

3.In Form 86, the applicant named the Board / “NON-REFOULEMENT CLAIMS PETITION OFFICE” and the Director as both the putative respondents and the putative interested parties respectively.

4.In fact, only the Board should be named as the putative respondent and only the Director should be named as the putative interested party.

5.The Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office is just an office which provides administrative and secretariat support to the adjudicators of the Board and should not be named as a party at all.

6.Thus, this court makes an order on its own motion to amend the name of the putative respondent to “Torture Claims Appeal Board” and the name of the putative interested party to “Director of Immigration”.

The applicant’s case

7.It is not necessary for this court to repeat the details of the applicant’s case here as the same were set out in the Board’s Decision, which can be viewed in the hyperlink above.

8.In sum, the applicant claimed for non-refoulement protection because if refouled to the Philippines, she would be harmed or killed by her boyfriend Moros, as he found out that she had a boyfriend in Hong Kong. She also claimed that she could not return to the Philippines because her mother had loans, and the creditors said that the applicant had to repay as she was the breadwinner in the family.

Disposal on paper

9.The applicant did not request for an oral hearing of the Leave Application. This court is also satisfied that the Leave Application can be disposed of based on the written materials before this court. Hence, the Leave Application is dealt with on paper.

Grounds for judicial review

10.The applicant is required to identify clearly the grounds for the intended judicial review (see Ho Loy & Another v Director of Environmental Protection, HCAL 21 of 2015, dated 22.12.2016).

11.The applicant did not advance any ground for her intended judicial review in Form 86, nor in her supporting affidavit dated 28 July 2023.

Discussion

12.The role of the court in judicial review is not to re-assess the non-refoulement claims afresh. The primary decision-makers in a claim for non-refoulement are the Director and the Board. They alone assess the evidence and find facts including those relating to the matters allegedly giving rise to the non-refoulement claim, risk of harm, availability of state protection and viability of internal relocation. The court will scrutinize the Board’s decision and intervene by way of judicial review only for errors of law, procedural unfairness, or irrationality (see Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524).

13.Thus, despite the fact that the applicant failed to advance any ground for the intended judicial review, this court will scrutinize the Board’s Decision for any errors of law, procedural unfairness, or irrationality as aforesaid.

14.In assessing the appeal/petition by the applicant, the Board held an oral hearing on 28 June 2023. The applicant was present and was thus given the chance to present her case to the Board in person.

15.As can be seen from the Board’s Decision, the Board analysed the applicant’s claim in detail, and gave full and detailed reasoning in rejecting the applicant’s claims. Its assessment on the applicant’s claims and its findings of facts were laid out in paragraphs 26 to 38 of the Board’s Decision, and it is not necessary to repeat the same here.

16.In gist, the Board did not regard the applicant’s claims about the threat from Moros to be credible. The Board found that the applicant’s claims about her relationship with him were vague, inconsistent, and unconvincing. The Board was of the view that the applicant had exaggerated the nature of any relationship she might have had with Moros for the purposes of her application for non-refoulement protection.

17.Moreover, even if her claims concerning Moros were accepted at their face value, by her own evidence she had not seen him since 2016 apart from one occasion in 2019 when she was back to the country for a week. The applicant did not know where he was since then. The Board found that the applicant had not established any basis for her claim that he would pose any threat to her should she return to the country now.

18.As to the applicant’s claims in relation to a debt problem in the Philippines, the Board found that given the applicant’s claims that the debt in question was her mother’s, not hers, and that she did not know anything about either the debts or the people from whom her mother borrowed money; coupled with the fact that the applicant had never been threatened by them, the Board was satisfied that her claim to fear harm at the hands of those people was not made out. The applicant had offered no basis for the claim that those people would somehow inform the Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong to deport her, and the Board considered it as simply nonsensical. Furthermore, even if that far-fetched claim were to be believed, such a report to the Philippine Consulate did not amount to serious harm for the purposes of any of the grounds under the USM.

19.Thus, the Board concluded that the applicant had not established that there were any, let alone substantial grounds which supported the conclusion that she would face a real risk of ill-treatment at the hands of Moros, or people to whom her mother owed money, if she returned to the Philippines.

20.The Board did not consider availability of state protection and viability of internal relocation. However, as the Board found that the applicant did not face a real risk of torture, ill-treatment, arbitrary deprivation of life or persecution at all, it is not necessary for the Board to consider the availability of state protection.

21.As to internal relocation, it is a well-recognised principle that the decision-maker only needs to consider internal relocation if the applicant has established that she qualifies as a refugee pursuant to Article 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention (see Robinson v SSHD & Anor [1997] EWCA Civ 3090, dated 11.7.1997). In other words, internal relocation only arises if the applicant has established a real risk of persecution in her home area (see Gardi v SSHD [2002] 1 WLR 2755).

22.As it is the Board’s finding that the applicant had no real risk of any of the proscribed forms of harm whatsoever, it is not necessary for the Board to further consider internal relocation.

23.The finding of facts relating to a non-refoulement claim, including the assessment of evidence and risk of harm, was solely within the ambit of the Board in dealing with the applicant’s appeal/petition. This court finds nothing wrong or unreasonable in the way the Board reached its decision.

24.Having rigorously examined the Board’s Decision and the evidence with anxious scrutiny, this court is satisfied that the Board had correctly set out the law and key legal principles relating to the applicable grounds under the USM, the burden of proof and the standard of proof. The Board also correctly identified the issues and observed a very high standard of fairness. This court could detect no errors of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality in the Board’s Decision. The Board’s Decision does satisfy the enhanced Wednesbury test, ie it is not Wednesbury unreasonable or irrational for the Board to reach its decision.

25.As held by the Court of Final Appeal in Po Fun Chan v Winnie Cheung (2007) 10 HKCFAR 676, for the court to grant leave to apply for judicial review, the claim has to be a reasonably arguable claim which enjoys realistic prospects of success. It is the view of this court that the applicant has failed to establish such a claim and hence leave must be refused.

Conclusion

26.For reasons aforesaid, the Leave Application is dismissed.

Dated the 19^th day of August 2026

( Gladys LEE )
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 his 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/Handed to the applicant/the applicant’s solicitors on: 19/08/2026 Applicant’s ref. no: Nil		Sent/Handed 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: 19/08/2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board/Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office Putative respondent’s ref. no.: USM 21050 Director of Immigration Putative interested party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 892/22 (Previously RBCZ 5000768/22) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)