Case Document

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HCAL 1018/2023

[2026] HKCFI 5321

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1018 OF 2023

BETWEEN

	Suyatin	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 40-year-old national of Indonesia who last arrived in Hong Kong on 23 December 2019 with permission to continue 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 last employment was prematurely terminated on 8 December 2021, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police some 9 months later on 14 September 2022. 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 2 former husbands for refusing to reconcile and remarry them. She was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of her claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Ponorogo, Indonesia. After leaving school she went to Singapore and Taiwan to work as a domestic servant before coming to Hong Kong in 2011 to work as a foreign domestic helper to make her living.

3.In 2012 she returned to Indonesia to marry her first husband and raised a family with their son in her home district.

4.In 2013 she returned to Hong Kong to resume working as a foreign domestic helper, during which she discovered that her husband was having an affair with another woman in her absence from Indonesia, and so the Applicant applied and obtained for a divorce against her husband before returning to Hong Kong to continue with her employment.

5.In 2019 she returned to Indonesia to marry her second husband, and thereafter in December 2019 she returned to Hong Kong to resume her employment, but later when she found out that her second husband was also having an affair with another woman, she subsequently in 2020 also divorced her second husband.

6.However, in 2021 she received demands from both her former husbands for reconciliation and re-marriage, and when she rejected both of their demands, they then became furious and threatened to kill her, and so when her last employment was prematurely terminated on 8 December 2021, she was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon her subsequent arrest by the police she then raised her non-refoulement claim for protection, for which she completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 29 October 2022 and attended a screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

7.By a Notice of Decision dated 22 November 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 the 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”).

8.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 former husbands upon her return to Indonesia as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from either of them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of either of them to seriously harm or kill her other than just angry words and empty threats, that in any event these were private relationship disputes between the 3 of them only without any official involvement and 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 277 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 adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from her home district in large cities such as Bandung or Jakarta where it would be difficult if not impossible for her former husbands to locate her.

9.On 5 December 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 25 May 2023 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised about her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 13 June 2023 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.In its decision[1] the Board gave the Applicant the benefit of the doubt and accepted her claim of fear of harm from both of her former husbands over their disputes but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of either of them to seriously harm or kill her other than just angry words and empty threats, and that in any event these were private disputes between them only without any official involvement and 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 either of her former husbands that her claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

11.On 26 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 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.

12.These are however all just some bare and bald assertions of the Applicant 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 what supporting documents that the Adjudicator had refused to allow her to submit without translations, or in what way was the interpreter impatient or unhelpful to her during her hearing before the Board. As none of the grounds have been provided with relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for her intended challenge.

13.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.

14.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 risks of harm in her claim if real are localized ones 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.

15.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.

16.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 28^th 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 28 September 2026 Suyatin 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 28 September 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 21235 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: RBCZ/5000945/22 Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)