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| The High Court upheld the decision denying the Filipina's claim |
A Filipina has failed to convince the High Court to grant a judicial review of the government's decision to reject her claim for asylum, which was based on her alleged fear of harm from a creditor she did not pay, from her husband because she became pregnant with another man, and the police in the Philippines because they might prosecute her for bigamy,
The Court of First Instance issued the ruling last July 11 even
after K. Pacurza, 28 years old and a native of San Nicolas, Pangasinan, withdrew her application
for leave to apply for judicial review last May 8.
Pacurza had appealed to the court after her non-refoulement
claim was rejected by the Immigration Department and then by Torture Claims
Appeal Board.
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| PINDUTIN DITO |
“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,” according to the decision ordered by Deputy High
Court Judge Bruno Chan.
“…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,” it added.
Pacurza arrived in Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper in
April 2019, leaving behind a debt for which she said she remitted payments to
her husband, who instead spent the money on himself.
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| TAWAG NA! |
After she was terminated in March 2021, she did not go back
to the Philippines after the required 14 days and overstayed for fear of the
creditor and of her husband, because she was by then pregnant by another man.
She surrendered to Immigration on Jan 27, 2020 and
subsequently filed her non-refoulement claim for protection against forced
return to the Philippines.
Immigration rejected her application on Oct. 13, 2022 because
her reasons did not meet the requirements of the 1951 international convention on
the status of refugees, and that the risk she claimed she faced were just her
own speculation.
Besides, she could move to another part of the Philippines to
avoid these threats, and be lost among its population of 114 million spread
over a vast territory.
She appealed the Board, which heard her side on May 15, 2023.
The Board affirmed the earlier ruling after a month.
It rejected her appeal also because it did not see a risk of
harm from the creditor from whom she received no threat, from her husband
because he himself had his own affairs with other women, and from Philippine
authorities because she did not commit bigamy as she was not married to her man
in Hong Kong.
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