ASSA
A
B
C
applicant's discharge if it appears to the court in relation to the offence, or each of the offences, in respect of which the applicant's return is sought, that
(a) by reason of the trivial nature of the offence; or
(b) by reason of the passage of time since he is alleged to
have committed it or to have become unlawfully at large, as the case may be; or
(c) because the accusation against him is not made in good
faith in the interests of justice,
it would, having regard to all the circumstances, be unjust or oppressive to return him".
Quite clearly in view of the opening words of subsection
(3), the fact that there is a statutory right to apply for
habeas corpus on limited and specified grounds does not have the
effect of restricting the applicant's right to apply for
judicial review or habeas corpus on other grounds.
However,
D
E
LL
F
G
H
where an application for judicial review covers very much the
same area as expressed in the statutory grounds of review, the
court has to be cautious about too readily supplementing the
statutory grounds. Here the present statutory applications
made under section 11 (3) (c) and the application for judicial
review, as is apparent from the grounds relied on in support of
the application, cover similar ground. What the applicant is
complaining about in this case is a breach of the rules of
natural justice brought about by the lack of good faith on the
part of the Hong Kong Government. Although Mr. Thomas does not
suggest that he has established actual dishonesty in the
government, he submits that the process leading to committal has
been corrupted by the prosecutor in a manner which has resulted
in unfairness to the applicant. He has had no opportunity to
decide how to conduct his case and was wrongly deprived of
material which could assist his defence to the charges. The
prosecutor ought to have known of the existence of the evidence
17