Hong Kong. More than two years have passed since Filipino domestic helpers Evangeline Vallejos and Daniel Domingo made their legal bid for permanent residency. Finally, their dream of making the former British crown colony their place of abode was shattered to pieces.
On March 25 this year, Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal has put an end to the aspirations of foreign domestic helpers to acquire right of abode in Hong Kong. The landmark ruling has affected tens of thousands of ‘amahs‘ (the name given to domestic helpers) in China’s southern territory.
There is an estimated 100,000 Filipino overseas workers serving as maids in Hong Kong. Most, if not all of these so-called amahs have 6 months contracts which are renewed over and over again. A good number has served the same employer for many years and have learned to speak Cantonese, the popular dialect spoken in the area. Some can even speak Putonghua or Mandarin, the Chinese national language.
According to an earlier news report by Associated Press, Vallejos and Domingo have both lived and worked in Hong Kong for more than 20 years. They challenged the constitutionality of an immigration ordinance that excluded Foreign Domestic Helpers (FDH) from the Basic Law provision granting permanent residency to foreigners who meet certain criteria.
Article 24(2)(4) of the Basic Law provides for the acquisition of permanent resident status by “persons not of Chinese nationality who have entered Hong Kong with valid travel documents, have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years and have taken Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence.”
The Court of First Instance ruled in favour of the two Filipinos in October 2011, but this was later reversed by the Court of Appeal, hence the final appeal.
It said that Article 24(2)(4), which addressed the situation of persons who need permission to enter Hong Kong, required that they enter “with valid travel documents”. Since the Basic Law does not say what “valid travel documents” were, the Court [ruled that] it was left to the determination of the director of immigration what travel documents are valid for entry into the territory, “as a matter of immigration control.”
The Court also identified prominent distinguishing features that prevented FDHs from being treated as ordinarily resident. Among these were the fact that a FDH’s permission to enter Hong Kong is tied solely to a specified contract of employment with a certain duration and with a specific employer, in whose home he or she is required to reside.
Other distinguishing features mentioned by the Court were that the FDH is told from the outset that his entry is not for settlement, that he or she cannot bring dependents, and, upon the end of the employment contract, the FDH is made to return to his or her country of origin.
These distinguishing features, said the Court, resulted in FDHs “being qualitatively so far-removed from what would traditionally be recognized as ‘ordinary residence’ as to justify concluding that, as a class, they do not fall within the meaning of ‘ordinary resident’ as used in Article 24(2)(4).” ###