Case Document

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HCAL 1644/2021

[2026] HKCFI 4830

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1644 OF 2021

BETWEEN

	Gulraiz	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 40-year-old national of Pakistan who entered Hong Kong illegally on 21 August 2015 and was arrested by police on the same day. 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 paternal uncle over some land dispute within the family and/or by local supporters of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (“PTI”) as he supported their rival Pakistan Muslim League (N) (“PML(N)”). He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Mallah, District Attock, Punjab, Pakistan. After leaving school he worked as a shop keeper and also farmed on his father’s farmland to make his living, and supported PML(N) regularly attended their local meetings and activities without holding any official post in the party.

3.In 2014 his paternal uncle started a dispute with his father over his farmland which his father inherited from his ancestors but which his uncle raised issue with and tried to take away from his family by making some false claim to the court for the land.

4.When the Applicant then made a complaint to the police against his uncle for making threats against his father over the land dispute, his uncle who had political connection with PTI also made threats against him, and one day in August 2015 while working on his father’s farmland, the Applicant was confronted by his uncle and followers who proceeded to attack him with wooden sticks that he suffered cuts and bruises all over his body until they were restrained by other villagers.

5.As a result the Applicant became fearful for his safety and fled to Lahore to take shelter in a friend’s place, during which he heard that some PTI supporters had exploded a bomb near his home village and injured many PML(N) supporters that the Applicant also became fearful of being similarly attacked by the PTI supporters that he decided that it was no longer safe to remain in Pakistan, and so on 19 August 2015 he departed for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon his arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non‑refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 18 October 2017 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 21 November 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 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”).

7.In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that he would be harmed or killed by his paternal uncle and/or the local PTI supporters upon his return to Pakistan due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of his uncle to seriously harm or kill him over their land dispute or of real threats from any PTI people against him other than huis own speculations or of any pollical reason for the PTI people to target him given that he was just an ordinary PML(N) supporter without any official post in the party, that in any event it was a private land dispute between his uncle and his 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 205 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 adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Islamabad or Karachi where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

8.On 4 December 2017 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, but the Board’s decision dated 18 May 2018 which dismissed his appeal was subsequently quashed by the Court of First Instance by way of judicial review and was remitted to a differently constituted Board to be dealt with by a different Adjudicator, and for which the Applicant attended an oral hearing on 27 September 2021 before the Board during which he gave oral evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by a second Adjudicator for the Board. On 22 November 2021 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.In its decision[1] the Board found no reliable evidence of any real intention of his uncle to seriously harm or kill him in what was essentially private land dispute between his uncle and his family only or of any threats from the PTI people against him other than his own speculations, and in the absence of any official involvement in either of his claimed risks that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to Pakistan if resorted to 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.

10.On 3 December 2021 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form or his supporting affirmation of the same date to which he just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor was he able to do so at the hearing of his application. As such, and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality 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 for his intended challenge of the Board’s decision.

11.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.

12.In the Applicant’s case, 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 his claim even if real are localized ones 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.

13.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.

14.In the premises, 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 25^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 25 August 2026 Gulraiz 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 25 August 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 9362/17/12/29/P1836 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 2554/17 (formerly RBCZ 12966/15) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)