Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › Hong Kong

Director of Immigration v. Chong Fung Yuen

Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong · Hong Kong · 2001-07-20 · National court

Citation: FACV 26/2000
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Does a Chinese citizen born in Hong Kong have the right of abode even if neither parent is a resident?

What the court decided

Yes. Under the plain words of the Basic Law, birth in Hong Kong is enough.

In plain language

A boy was born in Hong Kong to parents from mainland China who were visiting. The top court said he had the right to live in Hong Kong because he was born there.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Seorang anak laki-laki lahir di Hong Kong dari orang tua asal Tiongkok daratan yang sedang berkunjung. Pengadilan tertinggi menyatakan ia berhak tinggal di Hong Kong karena lahir di sana.

Pertanyaan: Apakah warga Tiongkok yang lahir di Hong Kong punya hak tinggal meski orang tuanya bukan penduduk?

What happened afterwards

  • 2001-07-20: Judgment.
  • 2013: Hospitals stop booking births for non-resident mothers.

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/hk-chong-fung-yuen-2001/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

This collection of decisions is built for empirical legal scholarship and socio-legal research on migration and the rights of migrant workers, as well as for advocacy.

The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

Keywords: case law; jurisprudence; judicial decisions; comparative constitutional law; courts and migration; judicial behavior; litigation outcomes; refugee law; non-refoulement; citizenship and nationality; empirical legal studies; empirical legal scholarship; quantitative legal research; statistical analysis in law; law and economics; law and economics of migration; comparative law; socio-legal studies; legal pluralism; migration law; labor migration; migrant workers’ rights; human rights law; access to justice; Global South; Asia; Africa; Middle East; Latin America; Indonesia; open data; replication data.