Remark(s):

1. The Court of First Instance of the High Court held in December 2008 that the government should provide legal assistance to a torture claimant during the screening process and provide suitable training for the decision makers. The Immigration Department (ImmD) then suspended all screening works.
2. The Legislative Council passed the Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance 2009 in November 2009, making it an offence for illegal immigrants to take any employment or establish or join in any business. The ImmD implemented the enhanced administrative mechanism in December 2009.
3. This includes 93 reviewed cases.
4. On commencement of the Unified Screening Mechanism (USM) on 3 March 2014, there were 2 501 outstanding torture claims. Separately, 4 198 persons had lodged non-refoulement claims on applicable grounds (other than torture) (in which 2 962 cases were lodged by rejected or withdrawn torture claimants), making a total of 6 699 non-refoulement claims pending determination on commencement of the USM.
5. Due to the special work arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic, only limited publicly-funded legal assistance could be provided to claimants, which delayed the commencement of the screening procedures of some claims. As at the end of December 2020, apart from 563 claims pending completion of screening by the ImmD, there were around 700 claims of which the screening procedures had yet to commence due to the pandemic.