Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
Throughout the rest of October and November, Lam heard arguments and delivered judgments in two further FDH residence cases, namely "Irene R. Domingo and Daniel L. Domingo v. Commissioner of Registration" (HCAL 127 and 128/2010) and "Josephine B. Gutierrez and Joseph James Gutierrez v. Commissioner of Registration" (HCAL 136 and 137/2010). Among those applicants, only Daniel Domingo was found to have satisfied the "ordinary residence" requirement entitling him to apply for permanent residence; Lam found that Domingo's wife Irene's period of ordinary residence was interrupted by a period of overstay in which she remained in Hong Kong without the authority of the Director of Immigration. He separately ruled that Josephine Gutierrez had not taken positive steps to establish Hong Kong as her only place of permanent residence, meaning that she and her son Joseph James were not entitled to apply for permanent residence either.
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.