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High Court rejects Filipina’s appeal against conviction in 2 immigration cases

17 December 2022

 

High Court judge confirms Filipina's conviction.

A Filipina’s appeal against conviction for two charges of breach of condition of stay has been dismissed by a Court of First Instance judge who ordered her to now serve her 12-month sentence.

“The appeal is dismissed.  The sentence of the Magistrate stands.  The appellant must return to carry out her sentence forthwith,” said Judge Audrey Campbell-Moffat in a decision released Friday by of the High Court.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

Jasmin Andaya, a former domestic helper and former wife of a Hong Kong resident, had been convicted of overstaying from October 2005 until she was arrested on Jan 2, 2020 in an Immigration raid on a restaurant in Tai Hang, and of illegally taking up employment as an odd job worker in that restaurant.

For the first charge, she was sentenced to 12 months in jail by Magistrate Frances Leung  at the Shatin Magistrates’ Courts; for the second, she was sentenced to three months. Both sentences will run at the same time.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

The judge supported the magistrate’s conclusion that Andaya had overstayed,

“The learned magistrate analyzed the evidence in a simple and straightforward manner….  The appellant, was, as a matter of fact, an over-stayer who was not allowed to work.  There was no evidence before her to suggest otherwise,” Judge Campbell-Moffat said. 

“She found, contrary to the defence case, that the appellant, on her own admission, knew that she had been a visitor in Hong Kong but had overstayed and that she was not allowed to work.”

Pindutin para sa detalye

She dismissed Andaya’s claim to have paid income taxes to prove that she believed she could lawfully work and that she was allowed to remain after October 2005. “The argument that she had paid salaries tax did not affect her status as a visitor nor her conditions of stay.  She remained in breach of them.,” the judge added.

The case began when Andaya was arrested in a raid by Immigration officers on Jan 2, 2020 on Palki Restaurant on Tsing Fung Street, Tin Hau. She failed to present identity documents but a check with the Immigration Department database showed that she had been overstaying since 2005.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

The Immigration officer who arrested her testified that she admitted she worked at the restaurant as a waitress and said she had done so for less than a year.  She maintained that she was paid $400 per day.

In the recorded interview that followed, where Andaya was assisted by an Ilocano interpreter, she admitted that Immigration refused her application for a dependant visa after she and her husband separated and he refused to sponsor her.

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She thus became a visitor and was allowed to stay in Hong Kong until October 2005.  “I knew I cannot work in Hong Kong.  I should leave before October 2005,” she said in the recording.

She added that she stayed in because she was hoping she and her husband would reconcile. She has  since lost her passport and Hong Kong ID card, and did not replace them,

BASAHIN ANG DETALYE

Judge Campbell-Moffat also dismissed Andaya’s lawyer’s assertion that because she lied about having worked at the restaurant for less than a year, when she had in fact worked there since 2014, all her other admissions should therefore be treated as lies.

The lawyer did not present evidence or submissions to disprove that she was overstaying from October 2005 onwards, she said.

 “The applicable law is trite.  Section 41 of the IO (Immigration Ordinance), Cap 115 (“s41”), requires the prosecution to prove that the appellant was subject to a condition of stay which was contravened and that the appellant knew of the relevant condition,’ she said.

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