Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
Vallejos and Daniel Domingo appealed their cases to the Court of Final Appeal, and were respectively assigned the case numbers FACV 19 and 20/2012. They would be represented before the CFA by Michael Fordham; David Pannick continued to represent the Government. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma rejected a further application for joinder by eight-year-old Liang Wing-ki, the Hong Kong-born daughter of mainland parents, whose next friend, mother Li Yinxian, filed suit on her behalf. Philip Dykes, for the applicant, argued that because Vallejos and Domingo's case would touch on issues of interpretation of the Basic Law under Article 158, Liang's interests would also be affected. In rejecting Liang's application, Ma stated: "We feel that the points you seem to argue are adequately covered and will be adequately covered". Liang and other Hong Kong-born children like her were ruled to be entitled to the right of abode in Hong Kong in the 2001 case "Director of Immigration v. Chong Fung Yuen".
Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
On 4 October, the government filed an application for a stay of execution of Lam's earlier judgment. David Pannick, again representing the Commissioner, had argued that the "status quo should be maintained" until appeals had been exhausted. However, on 26 October, Johnson Lam ruled against the government's application for stay. He noted that his earlier ruling applied only to the case of Vallejos herself. He stated that other FDHs would be free to file applications. However, he stated that it would be entirely permissible for the Immigration Department to delay processing of such applications until after appeals, and that such action would not constitute contempt of court as the government had feared. He further stated that if the Immigration Department chose not to entertain other applications by FDHs, it was up to those applicants themselves to take their cases to court. He also pointed out that "[s]hort of a temporary validity order, the court cannot pre-empt any person from relying on the legal principles set out in a judgment of the court"; the government did not seek such an order, and Lam doubted that the court had jurisdiction to give it. Thus, as he stated, the relief sought by the government would not shield it from suits by other right of abode applicants. Vallejos' solicitor Mark Daly stated that his client's residence application was "100 percent sure" as a result. The "Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor" was quoted as welcoming the ruling.