“Truth is like the sun; you can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away,” Judge Russell Adam Coleman remarked — quoting Elvis Presley — as the High Court rejected a judicial review filed by a woman who entered Hong Kong using a one-way permit obtained on the basis of family reunion with her Hong Kong permanent resident husband, whom she had already divorced.
The judge used the remark to underscore the applicant’s concealment of her marital status, which led to the dismissal of her case.
The applicant, Zhao Hong Cora, married a Hong Kong permanent resident in Shandong province in 2001. That same year, she entered Hong Kong on a one-way permit and gave birth to their son. The couple officially divorced in Shenzhen the following year.
However, Zhao concealed the divorce and successfully applied for another one-way permit in 2006, allowing her to settle in Hong Kong with her son. At the time, she had already been divorced for more than three years and was therefore ineligible for entry under the family reunion category.
Following an investigation, the Immigration Department contacted the Shandong Provincial Public Security Department, which confirmed that Zhao had failed to submit divorce documents and deliberately withheld the information. As a result, the department rejected her applications for verification of eligibility for a permanent identity card and for a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card.
Zhao appealed the decision to the tribunal, but her appeal was dismissed. She later sought judicial review to overturn the ruling, questioning the rationale behind the Immigration Department’s decision.
In his judgment, Judge Coleman noted that the Shandong authorities had confirmed Zhao’s concealment of material facts. He ruled that she had lost her eligibility to settle in Hong Kong.
The court further held that since Zhao’s stay in Hong Kong was obtained through false representation, she could not be regarded as an ordinary resident and therefore did not qualify for a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card.
