MOTION ON “ENHANCING THE HANDLING OF NON-REFOULEMENT CLAIMS”
President, at present, a large number of unsubstantiated non-refoulement claimants have been stranded for a long period of time, which has not only exerted pressure on Hong Kong’s public resources, but also posed potential threats to social stability and public order. For this reason, this issue has become one of the most frequently discussed topics in the Legislative Council questions in recent years. I am very grateful to Mr LAI Tung-kwok for proposing the motion, which has enabled the Legislative Council to focus on discussing the ways to fundamentally review and optimize the existing procedure and to request the authorities to consider amending the relevant legislation so as to expeditiously resolve the problem of the backlog of cases and reduce the length of time that claimants stay in Hong Kong.
As the Government’s measures to tackle the problem at source have begun to bear fruit, we can see that the trend of caseload has been kept under control, but the backlog situation remains serious. According to the Security Bureau’s statistics, as of January this year, more than 15 000 cases were still being processed in Hong Kong, which has posed a heavy burden on the Hong Kong society. In 2024-2025, the Government’s estimated expenditure for the relevant work has reached $1.1 billion, of which $580 million is earmarked for humanitarian assistance alone, including the provision of food, transport, medical and housing allowances for claimants. Imagine if we could expedite the removal process and reduce the existing number of cases by half, the Government would have saved at least $550 million a year. As the Government is striving to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, it should give due attention to this sum of expenditure.
Since there is no mandatory time limit for the screening of cases under the existing law, there is an absence of necessary time pressure from the filing of a case to its adjudication. Coupled with the abuse of the review mechanism, the hearing time is extremely long. I suggest that the Government should explore introducing a time limit concept on the screening time in the legislation and stipulate that all cases should be completed within a fixed time frame from the stage of case acceptance, through processing to the final decision. If the time limit is exceeded, the summary procedure or interim decision-making mechanism should be automatically activated to ensure that no case has been left in an idle status.
Moreover, the existing screening requirements regarding the evidence to be submitted by claimants are very complicated, and therefore the authorities have spent a lot of time checking and verifying the information, which is very time-consuming. For claimants who have a strong case and sufficient evidence, an excessively long screening process has contravened the principle of efficiency and wasted precious resources. On the contrary, for cases with multiple doubtful points, the authorities can examine them in more detail in accordance with the existing procedure. Therefore, I suggest that the Government should consider amending the legislation to specify that the streamlined screening procedure will be directly activated for cases that meet the basic criteria and have provided sufficient evidence. At the same time, the evidence verification standard will be adjusted from time to time in the light of the actual situation of the case in order to enhance the handling efficiency.
The work on non-refoulement claims requires coordination and cooperation between different departments, such as the Immigration Department, the Department of Justice and the Security Bureau. However, as the existing information sharing and communication is not very smooth, cases sometimes progress relatively slowly. The Government should strengthen the interdepartmental collaboration mechanism and establish a unified data platform for the consolidation and sharing of information in order to ensure the interoperability of data and information and create synergy among the departments concerned in the case handling process.
Against the backdrop of the global wave of digitalization, an automated case handling system has become an important tool for enhancing the efficiency of public services. I suggest that the Government should authorize the relevant departments to use big data and artificial intelligence in the administrative processes for implementing automated case classification, progress tracking and early warning management, thereby enhancing the efficiency and transparency of case handling.
In May last year, I visited detainees at the Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre in my capacity as a Justice of the Peace. I listened to the pleas made by many persons in custody and many of them clearly indicated their desire to be repatriated to their home countries as soon as possible. This has fully reflected that the detainees feel inconvenient and constrained in the detention environment and it has dampened their desire to stay in Hong Kong. At present, there is no public consensus on adopting closed camps as a standard approach to handling non-refoulement claimants. However, I believe that if our support package for claimants during their stay in Hong Kong is unattractive, this will push claimants to submit applications for removal from Hong Kong expeditiously.
President, at present, non-refoulement claimants have abused the review mechanism and their prolonged stay has affected Hong Kong’s public order, employment and social welfare, as well as the normal operation of the executive and judicial branches. The Government should continuously review and streamline the existing judicial procedures in order to strike an optimal balance between efficiency, the rule of law and human rights, and allocate resources to genuine and needy asylum seekers.
I fully support the original motion and the amendments. I so submit.