Mehboob Rimsha and Others v. Director of Immigration

HCAL 2829/2025

[2026] HKCFI 5593

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2829 OF 2025

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D E C I S I O N

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A. Introduction

1.The 1^st Applicant (“A1”) is a Pakistani national and a 25-year-old mother of three.  She has brought this application on behalf of herself and the 2^nd and 3^rd Applicants (respectively “A2” and “A3”), who are her two older children, born in 2021 and 2022.

2.By Form 86 dated 22 December 2025, the Applicants sought leave to apply for judicial review so as to challenge the decision made by the Putative Respondent Director of Immigration (“Director”), notified by letter dated 5 November 2025 (“Impugned Decision”), refusing the Applicants’ applications for extension of stay in Hong Kong.

3.Together with the Form 86, the Applicants filed an affirmation exhibiting (1) the letter from the Immigration Department (“ImmD”) dated 5 November 2025, (2) a divorce petition dated 14 August 2024, and (3) two Orders from District Court Master Eleanor Yeung dated 9 April 2025.

4.I gave directions permitting the Director to file an Initial Response and for the Applicants to file a Reply.  Following an extension of time, the Initial Response was filed by Mr Andrew Tong, Senior Government Counsel, and Ms Wingkie Lam, Government Counsel, of the Department of Justice.  Following another extension of time, the Applicants, acting in person, then filed the Reply.

5.Having considered the materials, I am satisfied that it is appropriate to deal with this application on the papers.  This is my Decision.

B.   Background

6.The relevant background has been set out in the Affirmation and the Initial Response, and can be summarised as follows.

7.On 16 January 2021, in Pakistan, A1 married her husband (“Sponsor”), a Hong Kong permanent resident (“HKPR”).  During the marriage, A1 gave birth to two daughters (A2 and A3) in Pakistan, on 8 October 2021 and 21 September 2022 respectively.

8.On 8 December 2022, the Applicants applied for visas as dependants of the Sponsor to take up residence in Hong Kong.  The applications were approved by ImmD on 24 April 2023.  The Applicants then arrived in Hong Kong on 18 August 2023, with an approved limit of stay until 18 August 2024.

9.After arrival, A1 gave birth to a third daughter on 30 May 2024.  She is a HKPR, and is not a party to these proceedings.

10.On 23 July 2024, the Sponsor attacked A1 with a knife.  She reported the matter to the police, and the Applicants were taken to a shelter home provided by the Social Welfare Department.  A1 then filed for divorce on 14 August 2024 (FCMC 8739/2024).

11.On 15 August 2024, the Applicants applied to ImmD for an extension of stay without sponsorship (“Extension Application”).  In the application, A1 stated that her marital status was “separated”, and also put “X” in relation to the box stating “For residence as dependant”.  In acknowledging that this application was on her own merits, A1 also submitted that:

(1)  it was unsafe for the Applicants to return to Pakistan as there was no one to take care and protect them;

(2)  her family had disowned her since her separation from the Sponsor;

(3)  as she had no source of income and no savings, the Applicants would face financial hardship upon return to Pakistan;

(4)  she would be able to take up employment upon a visa extension as she had been offered a job paying a monthly salary of HK$16,500; and

(5)  she wanted to fight for the Applicants’ rights in the divorce proceedings, such as for reasonable maintenance from the Sponsor, and a share in the Sponsor’s property in Pakistan.

12.The Extension Application was refused by the Director on 30 August 2024, and the Applicants were notified by letter on the same day (“Refusal Decision”).  In the relevant internal minute, the Director identified the following in relation to his assessment of the application:

(1)  There was a substantial change in circumstances due to the withdrawal of sponsorship from the Sponsor.

(2)  A1 was an able-bodied adult whose place of domicile was Pakistan.  She had resided outside of Hong Kong for many years before joining the Sponsor as a dependant on 18 August 2023.

(3)  The Applicants’ length of residence was relatively short (i.e. one year), and there was no indication that they could not re-establish their lives outside Hong Kong (or in Pakistan).

(4)  A1’s claim that she had no one to depend on in Pakistan and that she would face financial hardship upon return does not constitute an overwhelming or compelling ground for exceptional consideration.

(5)  A1’s intention to pursue her divorce proceedings was considered a private matter and did not constitute strong grounds for exceptional consideration.

(6)  Having considered all available information and surrounding circumstances of the case, there were no extenuating grounds which warrant an exceptional consideration.  As there was a substantial change in circumstances, refusal of the application was recommended.

13.However, instead of leaving Hong Kong as required, A1 wrote to ImmD on 6 September 2024, requesting a reconsideration of the Refusal Decision (“1^st Reconsideration Request”).

14.In support of this request, A1 provided the following information:

(1)  The ongoing divorce proceedings required her to attend court in person when required by the Court, so she needed to be present in Hong Kong.

(2)  She had applied for legal aid in relation to the divorce proceedings so she needed to be present to make representations to the Legal Aid Department.

(3)  She did not have the right to remove her children out of the jurisdiction of Hong Kong (without consent of the Sponsor or the Court).

(4)  She had made a police complaint against the Sponsor regarding the previously mentioned attack and her presence was necessary for the police’s prosecution against him.

(5)  The Applicants would face grave hardship upon returning to Pakistan as they would be subject to social discrimination (resulting from the divorce) and could be easily targeted by the Sponsor and/or other family members.

(6)  Her youngest daughter is a HKPR, and she wished to stay to give her daughters (including A2 and A3) better upbringing and education.

15.The Director’s internal minute dated 11 November 2024 identifies that the ongoing divorce petition against the Sponsor was already previously made known to the Director and had already been taken into consideration in the previous applications.  Whilst A1 claimed that she did not have the right to remove her children out of the jurisdiction of Hong Kong, she did not provide any fresh information (such as schedule of court hearings or directions from the Family Court) to substantiate her claim.  The other points raised by A1 also significantly overlapped with those already raised in the previous applications.  As a result, the Director concluded that there were no fresh grounds raised by the Applicants, and therefore refusal was recommended.

16.The recommendation for refusal of the 1^st Reconsideration Request was endorsed on 12 November 2024, and the Applicants were informed by letter dated 18 November 2024.  It was also noted by the Director that A1 may apply to enter Hong Kong under the prevailing entry arrangement for visitors in relation to her participation in the divorce proceedings and any other legal proceedings.

17.On 26 November 2024, a further reconsideration request was made by A1 on behalf of the Applicants (“2^nd Reconsideration Request”).  In her letter, she provided updates on her divorce proceedings, particularly that she was granted legal aid and that a First Appointment Hearing was scheduled on 11 February 2025 (and that her presence was required).  She also restated her previous points (that she had raised in the 1^st Reconsideration Request) in relation to the police investigation, and the potential hardship that they would suffer upon return to Pakistan.

18.But as noted in the Director’s internal minute (in relation to the 2^nd Reconsideration Request), the information relating to the divorce proceedings were merely “side issues” triggered from A1’s divorce petition, and the view was maintained that there were no fresh grounds for reconsideration of the Refusal Decision.  The Director also repeated that A1 may apply to enter Hong Kong as a visitor.  As a result, the 2^nd Reconsideration Request was refused, and the Applicant was notified of this by letter dated 20 December 2024.

19.A1 then submitted a third request for reconsideration by letter dated 31 December 2024, supported by further submissions dated 7 January 2025 and 12 February 2025 (“3^rd Reconsideration Request”).

20.In her letters, she repeated her previous points on the divorce proceedings, but updated that: (1) the Applicants were relying on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, (2) she had rented a private flat which showed that she was able to provide her children with suitable residence in Hong Kong, and (3) the hearing before the Family Court was adjourned to 9 April 2025.

21.On 10 April 2025, A1 further updated that since the Sponsor had failed to attend the court hearing on 9 April 2025, the Court – in an Order by Master Eleanor Yeung dated 9 April 2025 – had granted her the sole custody, care and control of her children with reasonable access to the Sponsor.  In the same Order, the Master also directed that the children shall not be removed from Hong Kong before they reached 18 years old, without the Court’s leave or written consent from the other parent.  The Order also noted that either parent could request ImmD not to issue passports to the children, and either parent may serve the Order on the Director to restrain the children from being removed from Hong Kong.  A copy of the sealed Order was provided to ImmD by A1 on 24 April 2025.

22.However, it is to be noted that following an enquiry by ImmD, the Family Court clarified on 29 January 2026 that the Order was without prejudice to and in no way a fetter of the Director’s powers under the Immigration Ordinance or any other legislation.  Therefore, for the purpose of the present proceedings, I need not consider the implications of the Order in relation to the removal of A2 and A3 from the jurisdiction.  How the terms of the Order are to be enforced, or whether it requires reconsideration, is a matter that is best left to the Family Court to decide.  I would merely mention my own preliminary view that permission to remove very young children might well be given to a mother who has already been granted sole custody, care and control.

23.On 17 July 2025 and 12 August 2025, A1 wrote to the Director, enquiring about the progress of the 3^rd Reconsideration Request, and repeated her request for the visa extensions, so that she could take care of her daughters and ensure that they could receive education in Hong Kong.

24.The Director’s relevant internal minutes dated 28 August 2025 and 12 September 2025 note that the only relevant fresh information in relation to the 3^rd Reconsideration Request was the grant of custody, care and control of A2 and A3 and the youngest daughter to A1.  However, this fresh information had no direct ruling on the refusal decision and it therefore could not outweigh the grounds for refusal.

25.The Director also found that the Applicants were in essence seeking to rely on their purported family right in the immigration context, which only constituted humanitarian or compassionate grounds which the Director is not obliged to consider.  It was solely A1’s choice to raise the children in or outside Hong Kong, and the Director is not obliged to grant immigration status outside the established visa policy to satisfy this choice.  There was also no implication that the child must leave Hong Kong together with A1 simply because she had been granted custody.

26.As a result, the Director concluded that there were no strong grounds for exceptional consideration, and the refusal decision should be maintained.  Notwithstanding A1’s letter dated 16 October 2025 (which once again reiterated her previous submissions, but added that she had received a new job offer), the 3^rd Reconsideration Request was refused, and the Applicants were informed by letter dated 5 November 2025, i.e. the Impugned Decision.

27.The Applicants then brought these proceedings to challenge the Impugned Decision.  At the time of the commencement of proceedings, their limits of stay had expired since 19 August 2024.

C.   Grounds of Review

28.In the Affirmation, the Applicants raised two intended grounds of review, being:

(1)  Ground 1: The Impugned Decision was wrong in principle.

(2)  Ground 2: The Impugned Decision was unreasonable and procedurally unfair, as the Director failed to properly consider the extenuating grounds which warranted exceptional consideration.

D.   Legal Context

29.It is useful first to set out the relevant legal principles in relation to the granting of an application for extension of stay.  Under the existing dependant visa policy, the spouse of a HKPR and their unmarried dependent children under the age of 18 may apply for permission to remain in Hong Kong as a dependant.  An application may be favourably considered if the applicant can provide reasonable proof of a genuine relationship between the applicant and the sponsor, proof that there is no known record to the detriment of the applicant, and proof that the sponsor is able to support the dependant’s living at a standard well above the subsistence level and able to provide them with suitable accommodation.

30.For applications for extension of stay, an applicant must continue to meet the eligibility criteria for entry for residence as a dependant.  A loss of sponsorship resulting from a change in circumstances (for instance, a change in marriage relationship between the dependent spouse and the sponsor) will constitute a loss of the eligibility criteria, and will disqualify the application.

31.Where the eligibility criteria are no longer met, the Director may, under general immigration policy, consider whether there are exceptional humanitarian or compassionate factors to justify granting a visa to an applicant.  The exercise of discretion by the Director, therefore, requires strong justification – especially given that applicants do not have the right of abode or the right to land in Hong Kong: see, for example, my judgment in So Tsz Man, a minor, by his next friend and mother, Nurhayati v Director of Immigration [2025] HKCFI 5815 at §31.

32.It is important to note, however, that the Director is not bound to give consideration to humanitarian or compassionate factors.  Where the Director does give consideration to these factors, the weight to be allocated to each factor is a matter for the Director to decide in the exercise of his discretion.

33.For decisions relating to immigration, the Court plays a supervisory role, and will only intervene where there is proper argument on public law grounds.  This includes, amongst other things, where the Director fails to take into account the relevant considerations that he is legally required to take into account (or where he takes into account irrelevant considerations which he legally should not take into account), where the Director does not act fairly in the making of his decision, or where the decision made is Wednesbury unreasonable.

E.   Ground 1

34.The Applicants argue that the Impugned Decision was wrong in principle because the Director failed to consider (1) the difficulties the Applicants would have to face if returning to Pakistan, (2) that A1 had been granted the sole custody, care and control of her daughters, and they had nowhere else to go due to her family disowning her after the divorce, (3) that A2 and A3 have been in Hong Kong since a young age and cannot be removed from Hong Kong without court permission (under the Order, disobedience of which would constitute civil contempt), and (4) the youngest daughter is a HKPR and A1, as her sole caretaker, should be allowed to stay for the welfare and well-being of the youngest daughter.

35.In essence, these factors are all humanitarian or compassionate factors (apart from the Family Court Order, which as addressed above, is without prejudice to the Director’s powers under legislation).  As I have already noted, whilst the Director may exercise his discretion to consider these factors, he is not bound to do so, and in any event, he retains the power to decide the weight to be allocated to each factor.  Therefore, it cannot correctly be said that the Decision was wrong in principle simply from the failure to consider humanitarian and compassionate factors.

36.But even if the Director was bound to consider these factors, on the evidence I do not think that it is reasonably arguable that the Director failed to take these grounds into consideration.  It seems to me that the Director had taken these factors into account, but did not find them to be of significant importance, and therefore concluded that it was not enough to justify deviation from the existing dependant visa policy.  As Mr Tong has submitted, a reading of the internal minutes (in relation to the Refusal Decision and all three Reconsiderations Requests) shows that the Director made a concise summary of the points raised by A1, in which he aptly recited the updates and grounds raised in support of each of her reconsideration requests.

37.By way of illustration, §3(b)-(d) of the Internal Minute in relation to the Refusal Decision sets out the first and second points regarding the potential hardship in returning to Pakistan and the disownment of A1 by her family due to the divorce.  §3 of the Internal Minute in relation to the 3^rd Reconsideration Request sets out the third point regarding the Court Order in relation to the removal of A2 and A3 from the jurisdiction.  The fourth point regarding the youngest daughter having the right of abode is set out in §3(g) of the Internal Minute in relation to the 1^st Reconsideration Request.  All four points relied on by the Applicants in relation to Ground 1 have been clearly set out by the Director in the internal minutes.

38.As mentioned in my previous decision of Kamran Javid v Permanent Secretary for Security [2023] HKCFI 1944 at §53, it would be simply unrealistic to suggest that the Director, in setting out these factors in the internal minutes, did not have them in mind when coming to his decision.  It cannot reasonably be argued that by virtue of the Director coming to a decision adverse to the Applicants, he did not consider the factors raised by the Applicants at all.  Hence, I see no reasonably arguable merit in the Applicants’ submissions in relation to this ground.

39.Mr Tong has submitted that the real crux of the Applicants’ argument in relation to Ground 1 is whether in taking these considerations into account, the Director nevertheless failed to give proper weight to the hardship relied upon by the Applicants.  I agree.  But as I have made clear, it is for the Director to decide on the weight to be given to certain factors, and it is reasonably open for him to come to such a conclusion.

40.Ground 1 is not reasonably arguable with any realistic prospect of success.

F.   Ground 2

41.The Applicants’ second ground is in essence, an extension of the first ground under different headings: unreasonableness and procedural fairness.

42.They submit that there are exceptional humanitarian and compassionate grounds to justify the granting of visa extensions on their own merits, which include (1) that the youngest daughter, being a HKPR, had deep ties and commitment to Hong Kong and A1 as her sole caregiver, had to stay with her to provide her a proper upbringing, and (2) that A1 had been offered jobs on different occasions which would enable her to provide for the Applicants a living well above the subsistence level, without any governmental assistance.

43.They also submit that the Director, in coming to the Impugned Decision, failed to take into account the above-mentioned factors, and also failed to ask for further information before reaching a decision.

44.It is trite that an assertion of Wednesbury unreasonableness (i.e. a claim that a decision is so outrageous in its defiance of logic that no reasonable decision-maker could have come to it) with regards to an immigration decision faces a stringent threshold.  The Director, in coming to a decision, is given a wide margin of appreciation, due to the lack of relevant expertise and information necessary for making an immigration decision for the Court.

45.It is also worth noting that a claim of procedural unfairness must include more than just a mere assertion.  The applicant must identify and explain how the decision was procedurally unfair.  In this case, the Applicants have not provided any evidence or proper explanation as to how the procedures adopted by the Director in reaching the Impugned Decision were unfair.

46.As I found in relation to Ground 1, it was reasonably open to the Director to find that there was no extenuating or humanitarian factor justifying exceptional consideration upon an analysis of the available evidence and circumstances.  The two points advanced under Ground 2, much like the factors advanced under Ground 1, are factors that the Director is not obliged to consider in the exercise of his discretion.  Additionally, as pointed out by Mr Tong, A1 cannot rely on the youngest daughter’s status as a HKPR to argue for immigration rights as a caregiver, a point which has been thoroughly considered by the Courts up to the Court of Final Appeal: see Comilang v Director of Immigration (2019) 22 HKCFAR 59.

47.I also do not see any legal basis for the Applicants’ claim that the Director should have asked for further information, particularly given that this information is in relation to his exercise of discretion and not the eligibility criteria under the dependant visa policy (or in other words, factors considered by the Director after he finds that the extension applications are no longer valid due to the loss of sponsorship).  Anyway, it falls to a visa applicant to provide such materials as the applicant thinks might persuade the Director to issue the visa, and it is not for the Director to request or continue to request information for that purpose.

48.What the Applicants are seeking is essentially a reconsideration of their visa applications (or more specifically, a reconsideration of the importance of their personal circumstances in the granting of their visa extensions).  As has often been said, this Court in exercising its judicial review jurisdiction does not engage in an analysis of whether the Applicants’ circumstances ought to be given more weight.  That is a matter for the Director.

49.In view of the wide margin of discretion given to the Director in carrying out decisions in relation to immigration, I conclude that Ground 2 is not reasonably arguable.

G.   Result

50.It may not be difficult to be sympathetic to A1, and to acknowledge the hurdles that she will be facing as a young mother of three navigating through life post-divorce.  There is certainly room for thinking that a different decision-maker might have reached a different decision.  But I accept that (1) individual immigration decisions – even if some might think them as perhaps ‘harsh’ – are taken in the wider immigration context, and (2) any such sympathy cannot change the Court’s analysis in this case.

51.It seems to me that the two grounds of review are not reasonably arguable with any realistic prospect of success.  Therefore, the application for leave to apply for judicial review is dismissed.

52.I make no order as to costs.

The applicant, acting in person