Songpaca Sanit Alias Songpracha Sanit v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 1454/2026

[2026] HKCFI 5673

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO. 1454 OF 2026

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:

Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 40-year-old national of Thailand who arrived in Hong Kong on 20 December 2025 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 3 January 2026 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and on 8 January 2026 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Thailand he would be harmed or killed by his creditor for failing to repay his debts.

2.The Applicant was born in Bangkok, Thailand and later moved with his parents to Sub-district Rai King, District Sampran, Nakhon Pathom. After leaving school he worked as a driver to make his living, got married and raised a family with a daughter, and later assisted his father running a business in his home district.

3.One day in September 2025 he attended a wedding party during which he gambled and lost large amount of money, and in order to pay off his gambling debts the Applicant turned to some local money-lender for a loan to be repaid by monthly instalments with interests which he initially managed to make from his income.

4.However, he soon started to default in his loan repayments, whereupon his creditor sent men to threaten him, and after one occasion when those men fired gun shot into the air with a warning that they would shoot him if next time he still failed to repay his loan, the Applicant became fearful for his life and fled to Muang City to hide from his creditor.

5.As he still feared of being located by his creditor, the Applicant on 20 December 2025 departed Thailand for Hong Kong and subsequently overstayed and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non‑refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 28 April 2026 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 27 May 2026 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 assessed the level of risk of harm from his creditor and followers upon his return to Thailand as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of his creditor to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to repay his debts, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between him and his 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”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Thailand with a large population of 70 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 his home district in large cities such as Phuket or Ko Samui where it would be difficult if not impossible for his creditor to locate him.

8.On 5 June 2026 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 14 July 2026 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 24 July 2026 his 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 his claim of fear of harm from some creditor over some debts that caused him to leave his country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if his account of events prior to his departure of Thailand were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of his creditor to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to repay his debts, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between him and his creditor only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to Thailand 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 his creditor that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.On 19 August 2026 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and in his supporting affirmation of the same date he put forward the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)  That the Board’s decision is unfair and unjustified in finding that that there is no applicable ground for the Applicant’s non-refoulment claim;

(2)  That there are substantial grounds for believing that the Applicant would be liable to be subjected to torture if refouled to his home country but that the Board was wrong not to do so in its decision;

(3)  That the Adjudicator only followed the Director’s decision without making up his own mind in the assessment of the Applicant’s claim;

(4)  That the Board failed to give proper weight on the Applicant’s claim in finding that he would not face BOR 2 or BOR 3 risks if refouled to his home country;

(5)  That in assessing the Applicant’s claim that the Board totally ignored the political power that his enemies would have against him in his home country;

(6)  That the Board failed to assess the real prosecution risk in the Applicant’s claim.

(7)  That the Board arrived at its decision without considering the many things in the COI and government records of the Applicant’s home country;

(8)  That the Board failed to assess the sensitivity of the Applicant’s claim.

11.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 his 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 of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or what relevancy is the political situation of Thailand to his claim when on the factual basis of even his own case that it was a private monetary dispute between him and his creditor only without any official 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, nor did he request any oral hearing for his application, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his 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 Board rejected his claim for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in its decision with the benefit of hearing him in his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim, and in the absence of any error of law 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 to challenge the finding of the Board.

14.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 him to relocate to other part of Thailand, there is simply no justification to afford him 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 his application.

Dated the 13^th day of October 2026

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

Form CALL-1