Who was the judge in the case of Vallejos and Domingo v. Commissioner of Registration?
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Throughout the rest of October and November, Lam heard arguments and delivered judgments in two further FDH residence cases, namely "Irene R. Domingo and Daniel L. Domingo v. Commissioner of Registration" (HCAL 127 and 128/2010) and "Josephine B. Gutierrez and Joseph James Gutierrez v. Commissioner of Registration" (HCAL 136 and 137/2010). Among those applicants, only Daniel Domingo was found to have satisfied the "ordinary residence" requirement entitling him to apply for permanent residence; Lam found that Domingo's wife Irene's period of ordinary residence was interrupted by a period of overstay in which she remained in Hong Kong without the authority of the Director of Immigration. He separately ruled that Josephine Gutierrez had not taken positive steps to establish Hong Kong as her only place of permanent residence, meaning that she and her son Joseph James were not entitled to apply for permanent residence either.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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On 30 September 2011, Justice Johnson Lam of the Court of First Instance of the High Court (CFI) ruled in Vallejos' case that existing legislation restricting FDHs from qualifying for permanent residence contravened the Hong Kong Basic Law. Lam also found that Vallejos and Domingo, but not the three other applicants, had fulfilled the condition of taking Hong Kong as their only permanent home and being ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for seven years. The Court of Appeal of the High Court overturned the CFI's decision on Vallejos' case on 28 March 2012. Vallejos and Domingo then jointly appealed to the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), which heard their case on 26–28 February 2013; the CFA rejected their appeal on 25 March 2013.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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Vallejos and Domingo v. Commissioner of Registration was a court case against the government of Hong Kong by two foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) seeking permanent residence and the right of abode in Hong Kong. Because of its subject matter it was commonly referred to in the media as the FDHs' right of abode case (外傭居港權案). Evangeline Vallejos and Daniel Domingo were two of five applicants who in various groups filed three right of abode lawsuits in 2010; the ruling in Vallejos' case was expected to be a precedent for the other two.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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Vallejos turned out to be one of five Philippine nationals who would file applications for judicial review. The others were applying jointly in groups of two. Daniel Domingo (the second applicant in the CFA case) and his wife Irene Raboy Domingo had been working in Hong Kong since the 1980s as FDHs, met, married, and bore three children there. They had applied for verification in April 2006, and had been granted unconditional stay but not permanent residence in November 2007. Josephine Gutierrez came to Hong Kong in 1991, where her son Joseph James Gutierrez was born in 1996; both applied for verification in December 2006. Vallejos' court date was set for 22 August, while the others were scheduled for October. Vallejos stated that she hoped to retire in Hong Kong.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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Vallejos and Daniel Domingo appealed their cases to the Court of Final Appeal, and were respectively assigned the case numbers FACV 19 and 20/2012. They would be represented before the CFA by Michael Fordham; David Pannick continued to represent the Government. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma rejected a further application for joinder by eight-year-old Liang Wing-ki, the Hong Kong-born daughter of mainland parents, whose next friend, mother Li Yinxian, filed suit on her behalf. Philip Dykes, for the applicant, argued that because Vallejos and Domingo's case would touch on issues of interpretation of the Basic Law under Article 158, Liang's interests would also be affected. In rejecting Liang's application, Ma stated: "We feel that the points you seem to argue are adequately covered and will be adequately covered". Liang and other Hong Kong-born children like her were ruled to be entitled to the right of abode in Hong Kong in the 2001 case "Director of Immigration v. Chong Fung Yuen".
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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The hearing on Vallejos' case began on 22 August 2011, and stretched out until the 24th. David Pannick represented the respondent, the Commissioner of Registration. During the hearing, the courtroom was packed to overflowing with lawyers, journalists, and other members of the public, who took up not just the seats in the public gallery, but also those for defendants and jury members (the latter being unoccupied as the case at hand was not a jury trial but a judicial review). Another hundred people watched the proceedings on a large-screen television in the lobby, while protestors both supporting and opposing Vallejos' case faced off outside the building without incident.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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In 2013, after the Court of Final Appeal had finished hearing the case, Rao Geping (饒戈平) of Peking University Law School, who had earlier served as a mainland representative on the Basic Law Committee, stated that it should not be necessary for the Hong Kong government to seek another interpretation of the Basic Law either regarding Vallejos' case or the earlier "Director of Immigration v. Chong Fung Yuen" (which gave Hong Kong permanent residence to Hong Kong-born children of non-Hong Kong resident mainland parents). In Rao's opinion the NPCSC had already clearly explained Article 24 of the Basic Law in its 1999 interpretation in the aftermath of "Ng Ka Ling v. Director of Immigration", and in particular had established that the Hong Kong government had the right to use the Immigration Ordinance to control who gained the right of abode in Hong Kong.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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The first applicant in the CFA case, Evangeline Banao Vallejos, is a native of the Philippines, where she was previously a businesswoman. She came to Hong Kong in 1986 as an FDH, while the territory was still a British colony. During her first year in Hong Kong, she switched employers, but afterwards continued to work for the family of Barry Ong for more than two decades. She performed volunteer work and became active in a church. She approached the Immigration Department for verification of eligibility for permanent residence in April 2008. In November that year, the Immigration Department informed her that her application was not successful; she was not considered to be "ordinarily resident" in Hong Kong by reason of Immigration Ordinance Article 2(4)(a)(vi). The following month, she approached the Registration of Persons Office to apply for a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card, for which she was also rejected. She appealed to the Registration of Persons Tribunal, which in June 2009 ruled against her. At that point, Vallejos applied to the Legal Aid Department for help; local law firm Barnes and Daly, as well as barrister Gladys Li, agreed to assist Vallejos in applying for judicial review to rule on whether the relevant provision of the Immigration Ordinance complied with the Basic Law. The case came to mainstream media attention in December 2010.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon of the CFI had been expected to rule on the case on 29 September 2011. However, the Hong Kong Observatory raised tropical cyclone warning signal No. 8 due to the approach of Typhoon Nesat early that morning, meaning that government offices closed for the day. The next morning, the weather had returned to normal, and Lam announced his ruling that the relevant provision of the Immigration Ordinance was inconsistent with the Basic Law. Vallejos herself did not attend court that day, as she was at work.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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Tourism functional constituency legislator Paul Tse raised questions about the Civic Party's links to the case, questions which were echoed by internet users including those on popular local forum Uwants as well as a Facebook group created by Tse to gather videos and articles on the potential negative impact of the judicial review. Vallejos' barrister, Gladys Li, is a founding member of the Civic Party. The Liberal Party took out attack ads stating that "Civic Party core member Gladys Li is helping foreign maids to fight their residence case", echoed the DAB's warnings of massive increases in population and public expenditures, and called on the Civic Party to make a formal public statement of whether or not the party itself supported permanent residence for FDHs. An editorial in "Wen Wei Po" the week after the ruling accused the Civic Party of being "an enemy of the people" for their alleged support of the maids' residence case. Public perceptions that pan-democratic candidates supported Vallejos' case are believed to have contributed to their poor showing in the November 2011 district councils elections.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration