Case Document

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HCAL 1088/2022

[2026] HKCFI 5811

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1088 OF 2022

BETWEEN

	Mehmood Atif	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;

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 38-year-old national of Pakistan who entered Hong Kong illegally on 12 June 2019 and surrendered to the Immigration Department on the same day when he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to Pakistan he would be harmed or killed by the village head of his home village over their land dispute.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Waisa, Tesil Hazro, Attock, Punjab, Pakistan. After leaving school he worked on the farmland gifted to him by his father in his home village but which the village head subsequently coveted and often demanded that the land be transferred to him, and when the Applicant refused, the village head then made threats against him.

3.One day in April 2019 while on his way home, the Applicant was confronted by 2 unknown men with knives but managed to make his escape without harm, but as he suspected that those men were sent by the village head to harm or kill him, he became fearful for his life and fled to Peshwar City.

4.However, later when he heard that the village head had sent men looking for him everywhere, the Applicant felt that it was no longer safe to remain in Pakistan, and so sometime in June 2019 he departed for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong and subsequently surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 9 August 2019 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 30 August 2019 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”).

6.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 village head of his home village upon his return to Pakistan as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from him, that there is no evidence of any real intention of the village head to seriously harm or kill him, that in any event it was a private land 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 Pakistan with a large population of million people spread across a vast territory of more than 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 where it would be difficult if not impossible for to locate him.

7.On 9 September 2019 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 December 2021 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 5 September 2022 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.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 his village head over their land dispute 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 Pakistan were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of the village head to seriously harm or kill him, and that in any event it was a private land dispute between just the 2 of them only without any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to Pakistan 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.

9.On 14 October 2022 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 of a land dispute with his village head but without putting forward any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor was he able to do so at the hearing of 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.

10.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.

11.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 even if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of Pakistan, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

12.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.

13.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 20^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 20 October 2026 Mehmood Atif 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 16276/19/9/32/P3201 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 649/19 (formerly RBCZ 162/19) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)