Case Document

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HCAL 116/2025

[2026] HKCFI 4935

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 116 OF 2025

BETWEEN

	Nuraini	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 / the Applicant being absent in open court;

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 32-year-old national of Indonesia who arrived in Hong Kong on 28 March 2024 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 employment was prematurely terminated on 12 June 2024, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police on 9 July 2024. 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 Indonesia she would be harmed or killed by her parents’ creditor over their unpaid debts.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Desa Sakuru, Kecamatan Monta, Kabupaten Bima, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia. After leaving school she worked in the local supermarket in her home district to make her living before going to Taiwan in 2014 to work as a domestic helper.

3.In March 2024, she came to Hong Kong to work as a foreign domestic helper, during which she was informed by her parents that they were unable to repay their debts, whereupon their creditor made threats against them including demanding them to marry the Applicant to his son and/or harming or killing her if she refused to do so.

4.As a result, the Applicant became fearful for her life, and after her employment was prematurely terminated in June 2024, she was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 13 August 2024 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 9 September 2024, 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 parents’ creditor upon her return to Indonesia as low due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from her parents’ creditor, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her parents’ creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to put pressure on her parents to repay their debts or to marry the Applicant to the creditor’s son in settlement of the outstanding loan, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her parents and their 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 Indonesia with a large population of 280 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 1.9 million 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 her home district in large cities such as Jakarta or Bali where it would be difficult if not impossible for her parents’ creditor to locate her.

7.On 17 September 2024, 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 18 November 2024 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 12 December 2024 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 fear of harm from her parents’ creditor over their debts but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her parents’ creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her parents to repay their debts or to marry her to the creditor’s son in lieu of repayment, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her parents and their creditor only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Indonesia if resorted to 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 parents’ creditor that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

9.On 9 January 2025, 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 in which she just repeated her claim as before of her fear of harm from her parents’ creditor but without putting forth 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 her 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 parts of Indonesia, 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.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 on 27 July 2026 in writing requested to withdraw her application as her issues in her home country have been resolved and that she now wants to return to Indonesia as soon as possible.

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, and in view of her latest confirmation that there is no more issue for her to return to her home country, I accordingly dismiss her leave application.

Dated the 1^st day of September 2026

(Joyce Ooi)
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 to the Applicant on 1 September 2026 Nuraini 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 1 September 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 24591 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 2023/24 (formerly RBCZ 5001599/24) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)