Case Document

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HCAL 906/2023

[2026] HKCFI 5388

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 906 OF 2023

BETWEEN

	Puspaningtiyas Rina	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 the Applicant being absent 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 59-year-old national of Indonesia who arrived in Hong Kong on 30 July 2019 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 29 August 2019 when she did not depart and instead overstayed, and some 2 years later on 31 August 2021 she surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if she returned to Indonesia she would be harmed or killed by her husband over their marital dispute. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Lumajang, East Java, Indonesia. After leaving school she worked in the factories to make her living, later married her husband and raised their family with their daughter in his home district in Rungkut.

3.In about 2019 she heard that her husband was having an affair with another woman, and after a heated confrontation with her husband the Applicant left their matrimonial home to stay in a friend’s place until her husband subsequently came to demand for her return.

4.Thereafter the Applicant continued to demand to have a divorce with her husband who however refused and threatened to kill her if she dared to do so.

5.To release her stress the Applicant on 30 July 2019 travelled to Hong Kong for sightseeing and to visit her relatives without informing her husband, during which she was informed by her mother from Indonesia on the phone that her husband had come looking for her as he was furious that she had left the country without informing him, and that he also accused her of seeing another man in Hong Kong that he would kill her upon her return, and so the Applicant was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and subsequently raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 14 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 March 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 of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from her husband upon her return to Indonesia as low due to the absence of or low intensity and frequency of past ill‑treatment from him, that there is no evidence of any real intention of her husband to seriously harm or kill her other than just angry words and empty threats, that in any event it was a private domestic dispute between her and her husband 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 Indonesia with a large population of 260 million people spread across a vast territory 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 Jakarta where it would be difficult if not impossible for her husband to locate her.

8.On 11 April 2022 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, but for which she failed to attend the scheduled oral hearing on 14 February 2023 before the Board without any explanation, and that the Board proceeded to deal with her appeal in her absence and on paper based on the material and information submitted earlier by her to the Director for her claim and available in the hearing bundle before the Board. On 16 May 2023 her 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 her husband to seriously harm or kill the Applicant in the absence of any evidence of any past ill-treatment from him other than just some angry words and empty threats uttered by him once to her mother in Indonesia, and that in any event it was a private domestic dispute between her and her husband 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 husband that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.On 9 June 2023 the Applicant filed her Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in her supporting affirmation of the same date she put forward the following grounds for her intended challenge:

(1)  That the Adjudicator did not consider her claim and just directly dismissed it without taking any time to think about her life;

(2)  That the Adjudicator unreasonably refused to allow her to submit her supporting documents without translations and also failed to give her time to arrange for their translations;

(3)  That the interpreter was impatient and unhelpful to her during her appeal hearing before the Board.

11.These are however all just some bare and bald assertions of the Applicant 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 what documents that she was not allowed to submit without translations, or in what way was the interpreter impatient or unhelpful to her during her appeal hearing before the Board when the record shows no such issues ever raised by the Applicant to the Board. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, nor did she subsequently attend the scheduled hearing of her application without any explanation, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for her intended challenge.

12.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.

13.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 even if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for her to relocate to other part 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.

14.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.

15.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 her application.

Dated the 24^th day of September 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 24 September 2026 Puspaningtiyas Rina 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 24 September 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 20141 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: RBCZ 5000213/21 Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)