1. The 4 Appellants: GA, FI and JA are mandated refugees; PA is a screened-in torture claimant. It is accepted that they have been “effectively stranded here in Hong Kong for a prolonged period of time”. At the commencement of the present judicial review proceedings, they had not been given permission to work. 2. The Appellants sought to challenge the decision of the Director of Immigration (the “DOI”) not to permit persons like them to work in Hong Kong. The Court of First Instance quashed the DOI’s refusal of GA’s request for permission to work on the basis that his circumstances had not been properly considered and held that the DOI must consider the request afresh. Other than this, the applications for judicial review were dismissed. On appeal, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Appellants’ appeals. 3. On various dates in 2013, GA, FI and PA have each been given permission to work. JA is at present serving a term of imprisonment for a drugs related offence. Despite this, the Court of Final Appeal was of the view that the appeals should proceed because important issues are raised and should be dealt with in the public interest. 4. In the current appeal, the Appellants relied on (i) Article 14 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights (“the BOR”), (ii) Article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“the ICESCR”) and (iii) Article 33 of the Basic Law to contend that they have a constitutional right to work in Hong Kong and, given this right, any exercise of discretion not to permit them to work can only be justified by the application of the proportionality test. Furthermore, they relied on Article 3 of the BOR and contended that not permitting them to work constituted inhuman and degrading treatment (“IDT”). They also argued a right to work existed at common law. 5. The Court of Final Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal. It was held that no constitutional right to work existed in favour of the Appellants, and therefore, no question of proportionality arose for consideration. The Court also held that there was no right to work at common law for the Appellants. 6. The Court held that section 11 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (Cap.383), subject to section 5 of the same Ordinance, intended to except immigration legislation that deals with a person’s entry into, stay in and departure from Hong Kong, and such immigration control included the aspect of whether a person should be permitted to work. Therefore, the Appellants are unable to rely on Article 14 of the BOR. 7. The Court also held that Article 6 of the ICESCR cannot be relied on, reiterating the principle that international treaties do not confer or impose any rights or obligations on individual citizens unless and until they are made part of our domestic law by legislation. The Appellant’s submission that Article 6 of the ICESCR has been incorporated into sections 17G(2), 38AA and 37ZX of the Immigration Ordinance (Cap.115) was rejected by the Court. The Court further held that the Reservation of the United Kingdom Government dated 20 May 1976 was clearly a reservation for the purpose of excluding or modifying the obligation under Article 6 of the ICESCR. 8. It was further held that Article 33 of the Basic Law confers the right of freedom to choose an occupation, but not a right to work. The Court was also of the view it is difficult to conceive of the existence of a right to work under the common law. 9. Nevertheless, the Court held that the DOI’s discretion is not unrestricted. In particular, there can be no derogation from Article 3 of the BOR which confers an absolute right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The burden is on the applicants to show that there is a substantial and imminent risk of IDT if the DOI were not to grant them permission to work. However, since there is a real possibility of a dispute on the facts, the Court declined to make a determination on the facts whether or not the Appellants have been subjected to IDT in the present case. Nor would it remit the determination of this issue to another tribunal, given that GA, FI and PA have been given permission to work and JA is currently serving a sentence of imprisonment, the determination of this issue would be an academic exercise.