Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
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.
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
Regina Ip stated that the government would have to allocate more resources to deal with the increased workload resulting from right of abode applications by FDHs. Since Lam's earlier ruling in favour of Vallejos in late September, there had been a definite rise in the number of FDHs applying for permanent residence, from just one or two such cases per month in the past, to an average of sixteen in August and September 2011, and over 20 applications on 25 October alone. In total, the Immigration Department stated that it had received 148 permanent residence applications from FDHs in October. A total of roughly 900 foreign domestic helpers made applications for permanent residence from October 2011 to late March 2012 when the Court of Appeal overturned Lam's ruling.