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Hossain Abul v Torture Claims Appeal Board / Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office [Decision On Leave Application]

Judgment Cited authorities 5 Cited in Precedent Map Related
Vincent
Judgment Date02 June 2020
Neutral Citation[2020] HKCFI 543
Year2020
Judgement NumberHCAL1417/2018
Subject MatterConstitutional and Administrative Law Proceedings
CourtCourt of First Instance (Hong Kong)
HCAL1417/2018 HOSSAIN ABUL v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD / NON-REFOULEMENT CLAIMS PETITION OFFICE

HCAL 1417/2018

[2020] HKCFI 543

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST No. 1417 of 2018

BETWEEN

Hossain Abul Applicant
and
Torture Claims Appeal Board /
Non-Refoulement Claims Petition Office		 Putative Respondent
and
The 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 refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1. The Applicant is a 47-year-old national of Bangladesh who entered Hong Kong illegally on 16 October 2015 and was arrested by police on the same day. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim on the basis that if he returned to Bangladesh he would be harmed or killed by certain local supporters of the political party Awami League (“AL”) for failing to pay extortion money. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2. The Applicant was born and raised in Village Bainkais, District Munshiganj, Dhaka,Bangladesh. After leaving school he worked in various jobs in various places, and in 2009 started to run his own restaurant in his home district in Dhaka.

3. In about 2014 some local AL supporters came to the Applicant’s restaurant demanding for donations for their party which the Applicant considered as extortion money,but as he did not want any trouble from them so he would just pay them some money for them to go away, and never reported the matter to the police. On occasions when he did not pay them enough money, they would threaten him with violence with a warning that if he wanted to be able to continue to run his restaurant business, he must pay them enough to satisfy their demand.

4. However, in late 2014 his restaurant business went down and was closed, and to avoid any further threats from those AL supporters, the Applicant therefore left his home district for other places in Bangladesh, but by September 2015 he felt it was no longer safeto remain in Bangladesh, he therefore departed on 3 October 2015 for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form on 22 June 2017 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service.

5. By a Notice of Decision dated 8 August 2017 the Director of Immigration (“the 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 (“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 all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and found no substantial grounds for believing that there will be any real or substantial risk of him being harmed or killed by those AL supporters upon his return to Bangladesh due to...

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