Case Document

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HCAL 1974/2024

[2026] HKCFI 5738

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1974 OF 2024

BETWEEN

	Wididodo Wahyu	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 30-year-old national of Indonesia who arrived in Hong Kong on 20 April 2023 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 20 May 2023 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and was arrested by police more than 7 months later on 31 December 2023. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Indonesia he would be harmed or killed by the family of a traffic accident victim caused by the Applicant as the driver of the involved vehicle. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Seputih Mataram, Central Lampung, Lampung, Indonesia. After leaving school he worked as a mechanic and a construction worker a s well as a driver for a travel agency in his home district.

3.One day in October 2022 while driving some customers of the travel agency on the highway to Palembang, the Applicant’s car slipped in the rain and struck the side of the road in an accident that he and his passengers were all injured and were taken to the hospital for medical treatments but that one of the passengers had his right leg amputated due to severe injuries.

4.Shortly thereafter the family members of that passenger came to the Applicant’s home looking for him demanding for compensation, but as he was not in the house, they warned his mother that they would kill him or cut off one of his legs if he failed to pay compensation as demanded by them.

5.To avoid their threats, the Applicant fled from his home to Bekasi in West Java to take shelter in a friend’s place before moving on to Ponorogo in East Java to stay with another friend, and on 16 April 2023 he departed Indonesia for Macau and then Hong Kong, during which he was advised by his mother not to return to Indonesia as the family of the injured passenger had come again to his home to threaten to kill him if he still failed to pay compensation, and so the Applicant was afraid to return to Indonesia and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong, and upon his subsequent arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 5 June 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 8 July 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 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 the family of the traffic accident victim upon his return to Indonesia 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 them to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to pay compensation to the victim for his injuries suffered in the accident, that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between 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 281 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 his home district in large cities such as Medan or Surabaya where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

8.On 19 July 2024, 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 11 September 2024 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 24 October 2024 his 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 threats from the family of the injured passenger in the vehicle driven by him in the traffic accident for compensation against him but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him other than to just press him to pay compensations for the injuries caused to the passenger, and that in any event it was a private monetary dispute between them only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to Indonesia 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 anyone that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.On 31 October 2024, the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form or his supporting affirmation of the same date in which he just repeated his claim as before but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge. As such, and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality 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 for his 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 his claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Indonesia, there is simply no justification to afford him 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.It is also of note that the Applicant recently on 4 September 2026 filed an affirmation requesting to withdraw his application as he wants to return to Indonesia but without providing any explanation as to what has happened to his claimed risk in his home country.

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 his 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 Wididodo Wahyu 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 24163 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 1394/24 (Formerly RBCZ 5000467/24) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)