Case Document

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HCAL 813/2024

[2026] HKCFI 5737

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 813 OF 2024

BETWEEN

	Sri Mulyati	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 37-year-old national of Indonesia who arrived in Hong Kong on 23 January 2022 with permission to work as a foreign domestic helper until the expiration of her employment contract on 23 January 2024 or within 14 days of its early termination, but when her employment was prematurely terminated on 9 December 2022, she did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police some 11 months later on 22 November 2023. 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 husband over their domestic dispute.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Cirebon City, West Java, Indonesia. After leaving school she worked as a domestic helper in Jakarta and then in Saudi Arabia until 2013 when she returned to Indonesia and subsequently married her husband and raise d a family with their 2 daughters in her home district.

3.Due to her husband’s limited income as a farmer, and in order to support her children, the Applicant decided to resume working by coming to Hong Kong in January 2022 to work as a foreign domestic helper and to remit money to her husband for the support of their daughters.

4.However, in November 2022 her husband called her on the phone asking for more money for him to repay a bank loan but for which he refused to disclose to her what purpose was the loan for, and when she refused as her priority was to support her daughters, whereupon her husband became furious and threatened to kill her when she returned to Indonesia.

5.Henceforth after her employment was prematurely terminated in December 2022, the Applicant 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 4 January 2024 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 23 January 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”).

7.In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that that there will be any real risk of her being harmed or killed by her husband upon her return to Indonesia 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 just the 2 of them 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 279 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 Jakarta or Surabaya where it would be difficult if not impossible for her husband to locate her.

8.On 31 January 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 30 April 2024 before the Board during which she gave evidence and answered questions raised of her claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 14 May 2024 her appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.In its decision[1] the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of fear of threats from her husband over their monetary or domestic dispute but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her husband to seriously harm or kill her other than just angry words and empty threats, and that in any event it was a private domestic dispute between just the 2 of them 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 22 May 2024 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 cited various applicable legal principles and asserted that she has many objections against the Adjudicator who did not give her true judgment but without providing any details or particulars or elaboration as to how it was so. 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.

11.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.

12.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 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.

13.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.

14.Moreover, the Applicant has recently in writing requested to withdraw her application as her issues in her home country have been resolved that she now wants to return to Indonesia as soon as possible.

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, 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 15^th day of October 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 15 October 2026 Sri Mulyati 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 15 October 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 22906 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 1736/23 (Formerly RBCZ 5001877/23) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)