IMMD 年報 2023
 

Appendix 14 -Torture/Non-refoulement Claim Cases


Year Made Determined Withdrawn or Taken No Further Action Outstanding (Cumulative)
before 2005 53 0 4 49
2005 211 1 30 229
2006 528 43 54 660
2007 1,584 82 51 2,111
2008[Remark1] 2,198 179 132 3,998
2009[Remark2] 3,286 0 1,037 6,340[Remark3]
2010 1,809 214 1,186 6,749
2011 1,432 932 802 6,447
2012 1,174 1,575 1,154 4,892
2013 491 1,813 778 2,792
2014 8,851[Remark4] 1,047 978 9,618
2015 5,053 2,339 1,410 10,922
2016 3,838 3,218 1,561 9,981
2017 1,843 4,182 1,743 5,899
2018 1,216 5,467 1,102 546
2019 1,213 1,344 149 266
2020[Remark5] 1,223 857 69 563
2021[Remark5] 2,528 2,220 130 741
2022 1,257 1,727 70 201
2023[Remark6] 2,135 1,437 59 840
Total on Torture/
Non-refoulement Claims		 41,923 28,677 12,499 840

Remark(s):

  1. The Court of First Instance of the High Court (CFI) held in December 2008 that the Administration 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 have 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non-refoulement claims on applicable grounds (other than torture) (in which 2,962 cases were lodged by rejected or withdrawn torture claimants), making a total of 6,699 non-refoulement claims pending determination on commencement of the USM.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. From 2020 to early 2021, due to the special work arrangements during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, only limited publicly-funded legal assistance could be provided to claimants, which delayed the commencement of the screening procedure of some claims.
  6. In view of the general resumption of international flights in the Mainland after the pandemic, the Mainland visa-issuing authorities abroad have resumed issuing visas to Mainland China to foreigners since March 2023.  Coupled with rumors inducing illegal immigrants to come to Hong Kong, the number of non-ethnic Chinese illegal immigrants intercepted by local law enforcement agencies has increased significantly since the second half of 2023.  The number of new non-refoulement claims received by ImmD has increased markedly as well.