Vallejos v. Commissioner of Registration
| Vallejos and Domingo v. Commissioner of Registration | |
|---|---|
|
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| Court | Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong |
| Full case name | Vallejos Evangeline Banao also known as Vallejos Evangeline B. and Daniel Domingo L. v. Commissioner of Registration and Registration of Persons Tribunal (FACV 19 and 20/2012) |
| Decided | 2013-03-25 |
| Transcript(s) | [1] |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | Vallejos v. Commissioner of Registration (HCAL 124/2010) Domingo and Domingo v. Commissioner of Registration (HCAL 127 and 128/2010) Commissioner of Registration v. Vallejos (CACV 204/2011) Commissioner of Registration v. Domingo (CACV 261/2011) |
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.
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.
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.
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