A judge took pity on a woman left to represent herself and accused the Government of making the hearing a 'charade'.
Mr Justice William Stone said the Legal Aid Department had in effect denied Mohinder Kaur her legal right to challenge the Immigration Director over his refusal of right of abode for her daughters, aged 15 and 17.
The Legal Aid Department refused to make a lawyer available to handle Ms Kaur's judicial review, leaving the divorced mother - who speaks only Punjabi - fighting complex legal proceedings on her own in the Court of First Instance yesterday.
No reason was given for the director's refusal to grant legal aid. However, the woman said she believed it related to her $60,000 savings.
The Immigration Department had meanwhile told her that a $5,500 monthly salary was inadequate for keeping her two daughters, Harjit and Gurjeet, in Hong Kong, and rejected her application to bring the teenagers to the SAR as dependents, on financial grounds.
'It seems somewhat surprising that on the one hand the Director of Legal Aid refused, presumably because she has too many assets to qualify, and on the other hand the Director of Immigration is turning her application down because she doesn't have enough money,' the judge said.