Case Document

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HCAL 2436/2025

[2026] HKCFI 5789

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2436 OF 2025

BETWEEN

	Shehata Ahmed Mohamed Salem Mohamed	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 55-year-old national of Egypt who arrived in Hong Kong on 11 February 2023 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 12 May 2023 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and some 11 months later on 24 April 2024 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Egypt he would be harmed or killed by his creditor for failing to repay his debts. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Matareya, Dakahliya, Egypt and later moved with his parents and siblings to Port Said where he completed his secondary education and then worked as a manager in an import company, got married and raised a family with a son in his home district.

3.In 2000, he started his own business importing automobile parts for sale, and in 2018 he expanded his business with the help of a loan borrowed from a local businessman to be repaid within 3 years by 3 instalments with interest, and of which he managed to make the first instalment from his business income.

4.However, his business was subsequently badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and when he defaulted in his second loan instalment payment in 2020, his creditor in early 2021 started pressing on the phone for the loan repayment, and in 2022 he even sent a man to the Applicant’s home to demand for the repayment.

5.On 11 February 2023, the Applicant travelled to Hong Kong to look for business opportunities, during which he received a telephone call from his mother in Egypt informing him that his creditor had come with some policemen looking for him and threatened to kill him if he still failed to repay his debts, and so the Applicant was afraid to return to Egypt 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 9 September 2024 and attended a screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.By a Notice of Decision dated 31 March 2025, 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 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”).

7.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 his creditor and followers upon his return to Egypt as low due to the absence of or 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”) shows that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in Egypt with a large population of 111 million people spread across a vast territory of more than 1 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 Cairo or Alexandria where it would be difficult if not impossible for his creditor to locate him.

8.On 7 April 2025, 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 10 October 2025 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 24 October 2025, 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 overstay in Hong Kong to seek protection, that his credibility was further undermined by his failure to raise his claim upon first arriving in Hong Kong until some 11 months later after his overstay that it found that the Applicant had fabricated his claim of having borrowed any loan from anyone in his home country or that he had received any threats from anyone that it concluded that he had failed to establish that he will face any risk of harm upon his return to Egypt that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.On 3 November 2025, 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 to which he just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor did he request any oral hearing for his application. 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 Board rejected his claim essentially on its adverse finding on his credibility 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.

13.Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been established by the Director in his decision 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 parts of Egypt, a decision also agreed and confirmed by the Board, there is simply no justification to afford him 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.Moreover, the Applicant has recently on 17 September 2026 filed an Affirmation requesting to withdraw his application as his problem has been resolved and he now wants to return to Egypt.

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, and in view of his latest confirmation that it is safe for him to return to his home country, I accordingly dismiss his leave application.

Dated the 20^th day of October 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 20 October 2026 Shehata Ahmed Mohamed Salem Mohamed 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 20 October 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 26030 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 2180/24 (formerly RBCZ/5001787/24) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)