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| The High Court, where appeals against immigration rulings are heard |
A Filipina who was
earlier jailed for entering Hong Kong on a fake employment contract has failed
to convince the Court of Appeal to allow her application for a judicial review
of the decision rejecting her claim against non-refoulement, or being sent back
home.
Eba M. Gonzales
had initially sought help from the High Court to challenge the decision by the
Director of Immigration and the Torture Claims Adjudication Board rejecting her application against non-refoulement. She was unsuccessful.
Gonzales, who
had spent four months in jail in 2019 for making false statements to an Immigration officer, had cited as reason alleged
threats made against her by relatives of “Alex,” a man who was killed shortly
after she lent him money. The relatives
reportedly accused her of being responsible for Alex’s death.
In dismissing her application, the Board said the applicant was evasive and made claims that
were “inherently improbable and her account, incredible.
Among her
questionable statements were that she did not bother to check Alex’s background
before she lent him money, nor did she ask the police for help when she began getting threats from his relatives following his death.
Gonzales also
said it was public knowledge that Alex died of overdose, prompting the court to
ask why then would his relatives accuse her of killing him, and why they issued
death threats against her.
The Board also asked why the applicant did not show
any interest in finding out more about Alex’s death so she could vindicate herself.
“The Board
therefore concluded that “it is inherently improbable that the Applicant had
been threatened with death by Alex’s family and that her allegation about the
threats is an exaggeration.”
Court records
show that Gonzales had worked in Hong Kong as a foreign domestic helper on and off.
She last entered Hong Kong on Nov 12, 2016 and was subsequently found to have
entered into a false employment contract for which she was jailed for four
months.
Following her
release from jail, she raised a non-refoulement claim on Aug 6, 2019 and cited
as ground the alleged threats to her life by Alex’s family.
On Nov 5, 2019
the Director dismissed the applicant’s non refoulement claim on all applicable
grounds, including torture and persecution risks.
Gonzales
appealed the decision to the TCAB and on Nov 11, 2020 the Board decided to
dismiss the appeal and confirm the Director’s Decision. She then turned to the
High Court to seek leave to apply for a judicial review of those decisions.
But in her
decision handed down on Nov 28 last
year, Judge Esther To rejected Gonzales’ review bid, saying the TCAB had
correctly set out the law and key legal principles involved in the case.
The Board’s main
finding was that Gonzales was “incredible”, or not did not give factual
statements, thus she failed to prove the threat or risk of harm to herself.
Alternatively,
the judge said the Board found that the applicant’s feared ill treatment does
not fall within any of the four applicable grounds for state protection. Even
if it does, she could easily relocate to another place in the Philippines.
CA Judges Thomas
Au and Anderson Chow found no reason to overrule the lower court’s judgment,
saying they could not detect any error of law or procedural unfairness in its
primary or alternative decision.
“Basically the
applicant failed to discharge her burden of proving her fears and risks. The
decision is utterly without fault. The proposed judicial review has no
realistic prospect of success,” said the appeal justices.
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