Inmate seeking payout over psychiatric detention told to take case to Hong Kong’s High Court
- Kashif Nazir is seeking HK$75,000 for what he says was a wrong decision by prison officers to send him to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre in 2020
- Small Claims Tribunal tells him it has no jurisdiction to deal with his complaint and suggests he seek judicial review at the High Court
An inmate who accused prison staff of wrongly putting him in a psychiatric facility hit a wall with his legal bid on Thursday after the Hong Kong Small Claims Tribunal ruled it did not have jurisdiction to deal with his complaint.
Kashif Nazir, who is serving a 13-year term at Stanley Prison, was admitted to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre on September 6 last year for five days and spent the first two locked up in an isolation room, which he called the “torture chamber”.
Nazir was convicted in 2015 of trafficking almost 700 grams of cocaine. He alleged that the decision to send him to the facility was an act of revenge by prison staff over a range of complaints he had made against them to the ombudsman, Correctional Services Department and police.
Nazir said he filed the present case to claim HK$75,000 (US$9,630) for the 75 hours of “nightmarish” experience he had endured at the centre.
Staff from the Department of Justice defended the decision to send him to the facility, saying it was backed by medical advice.
But on Thursday, deputy adjudicator Kestrel Lam handed down an unexpected ruling.
Lam found that Department of Justice representatives had failed to advise Nazir that his case could not be dealt with at the tribunal.
