Ruanah Zuhriman v. Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office

HCAL 1204/2023

[2026] HKCFI 5753

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No 1204 of 2023

BETWEEN

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

	consideration of documents only;          or
	consideration of documents and oral submissions by the Applicant in open court;

Order by Deputy High Court Judge (Non-refoulement Claims) Keith Lam:

The application for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

Introduction

1.By Form 86 filed on 18 July 2023 (“Form 86”), the Applicant seeks leave to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“TCAB”) dated 22 March 2023 (“TCAB Decision”), which affirmed the decision of the Director of Immigration (“DOI”) dated 22 June 2021 (“DOI Decision”).

2.The Applicant requested for a hearing of this application, which was held on 14 September 2026. When asked if she had anything to add, she said that she got married here last year with a Hong Kong local, and was still arranging for a dependent visa and wanted to stay a little longer in Hong Kong.

Background

3.The Applicant is a national of Indonesia. In gist, she fears that she will be killed by her cousin. She says that she is owing money to the cousin because she was a guarantor for her mother’s loans, and the cousin proposed that he would waive the outstanding amount if the Applicant were to marry him, but when she refused, he threatened to kill her when she returned to Indonesia.

4.The Applicant’s personal background, the relevant facts and relevant procedural history have been sufficiently set out in the TCAB Decision, which can be viewed through a hyperlink.[1] There is no need for me to repeat the same. Unless otherwise specified, the abbreviations and descriptions used in the TCAB Decision are adopted herein.

Legal Principles

5.The leave application operates as a filtering process and there is no requirement or expectation to give elaborate reasons for my decision: Re Zunariyah [2018] HKCA 14 at §23. I therefore set out below brief reasons for my decision, which I have reached upon considering all the materials before me.

6.In a judicial review, this court does not provide a further avenue of appeal. While I remind myself that in non-refoulement cases, I would adopt an enhanced standard in scrutinising the decision of the TCAB given the seriousness of the issue at hand, this court would not usurp the role of the TCAB, which together with the DOI are the primary decision-makers. A finding of fact is exclusively within the realm of the TCAB, and this court will not intervene by way of judicial review unless there are errors of law or procedural unfairness or irrationality in the decision of the TCAB: Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524 at §14(1). There must be a reasonably arguable case with a realistic prospect of success before leave for judicial review will be granted: Peter Po Fun Chan v Winnie Cheung (2007) 10 HKCFAR 676 at §§14-17.

7.An applicant is required to clearly and succinctly identify the grounds of judicial review relied upon in the Form 86 and the supporting affirmation: Ho Loy v Director of Environment Protection, HCAL 21/2015 (unrep.) 22.12.2016 at §142. He or she is also under a duty to make full and frank disclosure of material facts: Kan Hung Cheung v The Director of Immigration [2008] HKC 323 at §§14-17.

8.Given RHC O 53 r 4(1) and s 21K(6) of the High Court Ordinance (CAP 4), where an Applicant applies for leave to apply for judicial review more than 3 months after the decision:

(1)  The failure to apply within 3 months constitutes “undue delay”. To justify an extension of time in which to apply for leave, the Applicant must show “good reason” to extend time. In deciding this, certain factors that are likely to be significant are: (i) the length of the delay; (ii) the explanation for the delay;[2] (iii) the merits of the substantive application;[3] (iv) prejudice; and (v) whether the application raises questions of general public importance.

(2)  Where the court considers that there is no good reason for extending the period, it will refuse leave to apply for judicial review. The refusal of an extension of time is part and parcel of a refusal to grant leave to apply. It is not the case that the court refuses the extension of time as a discrete decision and then makes no decision on the question of leave to apply for judicial review, treating this as a separate matter entirely.

(3)  If the court is satisfied that there is good reason for extending the period, it does not follow that leave to apply for judicial review will automatically be given. While the court might grant leave, it retains a discretion to refuse to do so and the existence of a good reason for undue delay is only one facet of the question, others including sufficiency of interest and the need to satisfy the arguability test. Leave may also be refused on the basis that the granting of the relief sought would be likely to cause substantial hardship to, or substantially prejudice the rights of, any person or would be detrimental to good administration.

See: Thing Sunil v TCAB [2025] HKCFI 4366, at §9, citing AW v Director of Immigration & anor. [2016] 2 HKC 393 (CA) at §§23-36 and Thomas Lai [2014] 6 HKC 1 at §§43-45; H v Director of Immigration (2020) 23 HKCFAR 248 at §§17-22, 36-44.

Discussion

9.The application by the Form 86 was out of time by slightly less than 1 month. Such a delay is not too long.

10.In considering whether to extend time, I have considered the following matters.

11.I note that the Applicant has not explained the delay on paper. When asked about this in Court, her answer was that she did not receive any letter about the decision. This cannot be right given that her Form 86 referred to the TCAB Decision. It seems to me that she might have meant that she received notice of the TCAB Decision late (which is dubious because there is a letter from the TCAB to the Applicant which was sent to her then address notifying her of the TCAB Decision on the same day), or she might have been referring to not receiving notice of the oral hearing of the preset proceedings (which would not be relevant).

12.In any event, I am not satisfied that the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review of the Board’s Decision is reasonably arguable with any realistic prospects of success (see Peter Po Fun Chan v Winnie Cheung & Another (2007) 10 HKCFAR 676), and I would have dismissed the present application even if it had been brought within time.

13.The Applicant stated the following grounds of judicial review in the supporting affirmation: -

(1)  “Adjudicator did not consider my claim. Adjudicator directly dismissed. He did not even take time or did not think about my life.” (“Ground 1”)

(2)  “I had some documents but all in my mother language. I submitted all but Adjudicator did not accept because he could not understand.” (“Ground 2”)

(3)  “I request him to give me some time to translate in English of my all documents and I too took some preparation but my officer had no time.” (“Ground 3”)

(4)  “Translator did not help me at all. If I did not understand he became angry.” (“Ground 4”)

(5)  “Interpreter asked me to not take long time for interview as he had another job.” (“Ground 5”)

(6)  “Please help me and safe my life.” (“Ground 6”)

14.I have scrutinised the TCAB Decision carefully and come to the view that none of the above Grounds can be established or considered as valid or effective public law grounds.

15.Most if not all of the grounds merely consist of generic, vague and/or unparticularised assertions without reference to any underlying facts or matters establishing why, how and where each of those complaints arise in relation to the TCAB Decision. General assertions without particulars are not effective grounds and cannot assist the Applicant: Re Haider Khalil [2021] HKCA 223 at §16.

16.Ground 1 is clearly not correct given that the TCAB Decision considered the Applicant’s evidence about the alleged threat to her life in detail, as discussed in §19 below.

17.Ground 2 to Ground 5 are bare assertions and are contrary to what was recorded in the DOI Decision and the TCAB Decision and must be rejected: -

(1)  It would appear from the DOI Decision that, in the Applicant’s initial application and at her interview with the Immigration Department, she had no difficulty in providing detailed information about her claim: see DOI Decision §6. In particular, the DOI Decision specifically referred to certain information provided by the Applicant, and quoted certain responses by the Applicant to the DOI’s questions, at the screening interview: §§6.15, 6.18. 6.19, 6.21, 6.22, 6.23, 6.24, 6.25, 6.26, 6.28, 6.29, 6.31.

(2)  Despite the allegation that the Applicant had some documents in her mother language to submit to the Adjudicator which he refused to consider, no such documents are presented in her supporting affirmation in this application.

(3)  The Applicant attended the oral hearing before the TCAB without legal representation. She was assisted by an interpreter qualified in the Bahasa and English languages: TCAB Decision §7. There was no indication of any difficulty in giving evidence and/or answering the questions raised by the TCAB. As recorded in the TCAB Decision, the TCAB made extensive inquiries of the Applicant and the Applicant’s responses were recorded: see TCAB Decision §§46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 68.

18.Ground 6 self-evidently has no substance.

19.As can be seen from the TCAB Decision, the TCAB took into account all the evidence available and found that on the basis of the same, applying the correct legal principles in respect of all applicable grounds under the Unified Screening Mechanism, the TCAB concluded that there was no real risk that the Applicant would face any of the proscribed forms of harm should she return to Indonesia: §§58-82. It is clear that the TCAB considered the evidence available thoroughly and in detail. In particular:

(1)  The TCAB was not prepared to accept the Applicant’s claim that she feared of being forced to marry her cousin was truthful or that she was at risk of any harm if she returned to Indonesia (in particular because she could easily have married her boyfriend in Hong Kong, who is a permanent resident, in the meantime, and her acceptance that her cousin could do nothing to her if she had so married): §§66-68. Indeed, it would appear that this perceived risk would have gone now that, according to the Applicant, she has married a Hong Kong resident.

(2)  The TCAB noted that the Applicant has not claimed that there is a consistent pattern of gross violation of human rights for the purposes of section 37ZI(5) of the Immigration Ordinance or otherwise. In any event it would not accept it based on reliable country of origin information: §69. There were also no claims against the authorities or police or public officials: §§73, 76.

(3)  There can be no claim that the authorities acquiesced in any ill-treatment as the Applicant had not even reported her fear to the authorities: §74.

20.I have also considered the Applicant’s oral submissions. However, the Applicant’s personal circumstances in Hong Kong being her marriage to a Hong Kong permanent resident and her dependent visa application are not valid grounds or relevant consideration in relation to her own non-refoulement claim: Oguzie Ikechukwu Charles v Torture Claims Appeal Board [2022] HKCA 135, at §20; Re Adeel Muhammad [2023] HKCA 948 at §7.

21.Therefore, I do not find any error of law or procedural unfairness or irrationality on the part of the TCAB Decision. I would have dismissed the application in any event.

22.Further, an extension of time for an unmeritorious application such as the present one would result in further undue delay, prove prejudicial, and undermine the orderly conduct and progress of the refoulement process.

Conclusion

23.In light of the foregoing, no extension of time is granted and the application for leave to apply for judicial review is dismissed.

Dated the 23^rd day of October 2026

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

Form CALL-1