British-born Chinese man's right of abode quashed by High Court
Judge accepts government challenge to decision to give Briton right of abode
A High Court judge yesterday quashed the Registration of Persons Tribunal's decision to grant a British-born Chinese man right of abode in Hong Kong.
Mr Justice Thomas Au Hing-cheung also remitted the case of British national Man Wai-sing, 40, to a differently constituted tribunal to "reconsider the evidence and make the necessary fact finding".
The judge accepted the commissioner of registration's arguments in the judicial review that the tribunal had erred in law by taking into account Man's pre-handover permanent identity card as prima facie evidence that he is entitled to the right of abode.
Au also accepted that the tribunal was wrong to find the Chinese Nationality Law not applicable in determining Man's right of abode. It was wrong, he said, to shift the burden to the commissioner to prove Man's parents were settled in Britain at the time of his birth.
The judicial review was filed by the commissioner after the tribunal quashed her decision and stated that Man had right of abode in the city.
Man was given a permanent resident's ID card in 1995 when the Immigration Department decided he was then a British Dependent Territories citizen and had connections with Hong Kong because his parents were born in the city.