Case Document

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HCAL 1508/2023

[2026] HKCFI 5181

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO. 1508 OF 2023

BETWEEN

	Ritthidet Rocharin	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:

1. Extension of time for the application for leave to apply for Judicial Review of the decision of Torture Claims Appeal Board dated 29 March 2023 be refused; and

2. The application for leave to apply for Judicial Review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 45-year-old national of Thailand who arrived in Hong Kong on 14 December 2019 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 13 January 2020 when she did not depart and instead overstayed, and some 20 months later on 14 September 2021 she surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Thailand she would be harmed or killed 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 Prachin Buri Province, Thailand. After leaving school she worked in an electronic company to make her living, cohabitated with her boyfriend and raised a family with their daughter in her home district.

3.In 2007 she started to run her own restaurant business in nearby Tanyaburi District, and in early 2019 for expanding her restaurant she borrowed a loan from some local money-lender to be repaid by monthly instalments with interests which she initially managed to make from her business income.

4.However, her business did not fare well, and by October 2019, she started to default in her loan repayments, whereupon her creditor sent men to threaten her and vandalized her restaurant.

5.To avoid further threats and harassments from her creditor, the Applicant on 14 December 2019 travelled to Hong Kong to seek help from her friend, during which she was informed by her mother in Thailand that her creditor had threatened to kill her if she still failed to repay her debts, and so the Applicant was afraid to return to Thailand and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and some 20 months later in September 2021 she surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 29 December 2021 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 31 May 2022 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”).

7.In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that there will be any real risk of her being harmed or killed by her creditor upon her return to Thailand due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her 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 Thailand with a large population of 69 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 513,000 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 Samut Prakan or Chiang Mai where it would be difficult if not impossible for her creditor to locate her.

8.On 10 June 2022 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 17 March 2023 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 29 March 2023 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.In its decision[1] the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted the credibility of her claim of fear of harm from her creditor over her debts that caused her to overstay in Hong Kong to seek protection, that her credibility was further undermined by her failure to raise her claim upon first arriving in Hong Kong until some 20 months later, that even if her account of events prior to her departure of Thailand were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of her creditor to seriously harm or kill her other than to press her to repay her debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon her return to Thailand 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 creditor that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.On 24 August 2023 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward the following grounds for her intended challenge:

(1)  That the Board reached the decision wrongly in assessing her non-refoulement claim as the decision was not fair or reasonable as required by the Wednesbury test in failing to recognize that her life must be protected by the criminal law from extra-judicial killings that she may face if deported back to her home country;

(2)  That the Board failed to appreciate or place proper or sufficient weight or importance to the presence of State Acquiescence in her case which led to an unfair outcome of rejecting her claim;

(3)  That the Adjudicator acted unreasonably and was procedurally unfair by placing too much reliance on COI but failed to take into account the Applicant’s personal background and experience in assessing her claim;

(4)  That the Board had listed relevant COI which supported the Applicant’s aversions that the police in her country would not be able to protect but failed to consider or give sufficient weight to such evidence and instead ruled otherwise against the Applicant’s case which was a clear case of unfair attitude shown by the Board which in itself is enough to render its decision void;

(5)  That the Board failed to attain the high standard of fairness required by the Wednesbury test in failing to take into account the Applicant’s argument that corruption and incompetency of the administration in the Applicant’s country is still a very serious problem as various human rights organizations had compiled reports that stated testament to the Applicant’s assertions;

(6)  That the Adjudicator was procedurally improper and unfair when assessing whether or not to accept the Applicant’s explanations and unreasonably required her to respond to questions that she was not in a position to offer any response;

(7)  That the Adjudicator made a ruling to dismiss the Applicant’s appeal based on findings which the Adjudicator ought to allow and thus the decision was irrational.

11.By then the Applicant was however out of time with her application, as Order 53 rule 4(1) of the Rules of the High Court, Cap 4A requires that an application for leave to apply for judicial review be made promptly and in any event within three months from the day when grounds for the application first arose unless the Court considers that there is good reason to extend the period within which the application shall be made.

12.As the last day of the three-month period for her to file her Form 86 fell on 29 June 2023, the Applicant was therefore some 8 weeks late with her application, and in considering whether to extend time, the Court shall have regard to (i) the length of the delay; (ii) the reason for the delay; (iii) the merits of the intended application; and (iv) any prejudice to the putative respondent and to public administration: AW v Director of Immigration [2016] 2 HKC 393.

13.In the Applicant’s case, a delay of 8 weeks must be considered as very substantial and inordinate, for which she explained in her Form that she required assistance in understanding the decision and preparing her present application that led to her delay but without any further details or evidence, and while it is accepted that without legal representation that she did require assistance with her application as asserted, but which cannot be accepted as a valid reason to justify her such serious delay.

14.As for the merits, if any, of her intended application, those grounds put forward by the Applicant are all just some bare and bald assertions containing a few key words or phrases but without any relevant or necessary details or particulars 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 relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or what relevancy are state acquiescence or extra-judicial killings to her claim when on the factual basis of even her own case that it was a private monetary dispute between her and her creditor only without any official involvement or political element at all. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, and as she never requested any oral hearing for her application, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for her intended challenge.

15.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.

16.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.

17.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 even if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other parts of Thailand, there is simply no justification to afford her with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

18.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.

19.Moreover, the Applicant has recently on 25 August 2026 in writing requested to withdraw her application as her issues in her home country have been resolved that she now wants to return to Thailand as soon as possible.

20.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 of no more issue for her to return to her home country, I accordingly dismiss her leave application.

Dated the 22^nd 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 22 September 2026 Ritthidet Rocharin 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 22 September 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 20442 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 2800/21 (formerly RBCZ 5000240/21) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)