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| The High Court, where the Court of First Instance holds it proceedings |
Hong Kong’s High Court has rebuffed a Filipina asylum-seeker’s attempt to raise a new issue in her appeal against earlier decisions that rejected her non-refoulement claim.
M. . Reyes, 51 years old, had applied to the Court of First Instance for leave to apply for judicial review against the decisions of the director of Immigration and the Torture Claims Appeal Board/Non-Refoulement Claims Petition Office that rejected her Form 86 application.
In that application,
Reyes said she was seeking protection from being sent back home because of fear
she would be killed by her former husband in the Philippines and his girlfriend’s
brother, because she witnessed the latter killing a man.
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| I-CLICK DITO |
It was only when she went to the CFI, after her application
was rejected because her reason was not among those accepted under the Unified
Screening Mechanism (the “USM”) -- torture risk, Bill of Rights (BOR) 3 or ill-treatment
risk, persecution risk ; and BOR 2 risk (to life) -- that she invoked her
children’s problems and their rights.
Reyes was referring to her three children from a live-in relationship
with a Hong Kong permanent resident. She had six children from previous relationships
in the Philippines --five fathered by her ex-husband and one by a former
boyfriend.
“The Applicant did
not advance any grounds for judicial review in the Form 86. In her supporting affidavit, she stated that she
did not agree with the Board’s Decision because of her children’s problems and
their rights,” the court said in a decision ordered by Deputy High Court Judge
To and signed by Seline Sze for the registrar of the High Court.
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| PINDUTIN DITO |
But "… insofar as her reliance on her children’s problems and
their rights are concerned, this basis of claim had never been raised before
the Director or the Board. It is not
open to her to seek to review the Decision on this ground as the Board had made
no decision in relation to her children’s problems and their rights,” it said.
Reyes did not question the process she underwent at the Immigration
Department and the Board, but the CFI still
weighed her case on merit, noting that she failed to prove her fears and risks, and the earlier decision to reject her claim “is utterly without fault.”
“Having rigorously
examined the Decision, the papers and the evidence with anxious scrutiny, the
Court is satisfied that the Board had correctly set out the law and key legal
principles applicable to non-refoulement protection under the USM,” it
concluded.
“The Court could detect no error of law or procedural
unfairness in the Decision,” it stressed.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
The court also noted that Reyes did not appear before it, even if she
requested an oral hearing of her leave application.
Reyes last entered Hong Kong on July 30, 2012 to work as a domestic
helper.
She overstayed in Hong Kong from Dec. 17, 2013 after her
employment was prematurely terminated.
She surrendered to the Immigration Department a day later and made a
non-refoulement claim on Feb. 17, 2016.
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