HCAL 850/2019

[2024] HKCFI 2483

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

LIST No. 850 of 2019

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;

(1) Leave to amend the Form 86 be granted; and

(2) Leave to apply for Judicial Review be granted.

Observations for the Applicant:

Introduction

1. This is the Applicant’s application by Form 86 filed on 27 March 2019 for leave to apply for judicial review (the “leave application”) of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non-Refoulement Claims Petition Office (the “Board”) dated 22 February 2019 (the “2019 Decision”) dismissing his appeal against the decision of the Director of Immigration (the “Director”) in his Notice of Further Decision dated 27 April 2017 (the “Further Notice”).

2. The Applicant is a Bangladeshi national. He entered Hong Kong as a visitor on 16 June 2006. He overstayed since 1 July 2006. He was arrested for overstaying and then sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment on 7 January 2009. While serving his sentence, he made a non-refoulement claim on 19 February 2009. In gist, he claimed, if refouled to Bangladesh, he would be killed by people from Awami League political party (“AL”), as he had refused to resign from the post of joint secretary in a rival political party, namely the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (“BNP”).

3. In due course, his non-refoulement claim was assessed on all three applicable grounds then available under the Unified Screening Mechanism (the “USM”), namely: Torture Risk [1] ; BOR 3 Risk [2] and Persecution Risk [3] grounds. By his Notice of Decision dated 29 October 2014 (the “Notice”), the Director rejected his claim. His appeal against the Notice was dismissed by the Board’s Decision dated 22 December 2016 (the “2016 Decision”). He did not apply for leave to review the 2016 Decision.

4. On 15 March 2017, the Director invited him to submit additional facts, if any, relevant to his non-refoulement claim on all applicable grounds, including BOR 2 Risk [4] ground. The Applicant made further submissions to the Director together with 23 supporting documents (the “supporting documents”).

5. By his Further Notice, the Director rejected his BOR 2 claim. His appeal against the Further Notice was dismissed by the 2019 Decision, which was made by the Board constituted by the same adjudicator who made the 2016 Decision. He now seeks leave to apply for judicial review of the 2019 Decision. He was legally represented at the hearing before the Court and leave was granted f