Legal challenge to settlement scheme for mainland migrants thrown out, as judge says ‘court is not the ombudsman’
- Judicial review lodged by Kwok Cheuk-kin quashed because power on setting daily quota for migrant scheme lies with Beijing
- Critics have accused new migrants of flooding city’s overburdened hospitals
Hong Kong’s High Court has thrown out an application to review a policy allowing up to 150 mainland Chinese residents to settle in the city daily, a scheme which has led to critics accusing new migrants of draining public hospital resources.
“The court is not the ombudsman,” Mr Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming wrote in a two-page judgment, handed down on Friday. “The proposed judicial review cannot be reasonably argued.”
The legal challenge against the so-called one-way permit scheme was lodged by Kwok Cheuk-kin last month, demanding a court order for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to implement Article 22 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.
Kwok called on the court to fix the perceived maladministration that had harmed the public.
His sentiment was shared by some public sector health care professionals, while Lam defended the policy, saying it was false and unreasonable to pick on the use of social resources.