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.
National Center for Law and Economic Justice
Since its founding, NCLEJ has won many notable cases. In 1968, NCLEJ won its first Supreme Court welfare case, King v. Smith, which prevented the states from denying public benefits to families determined to be eligible under prior federal law. In 1970, NCLEJ secured a victory in the landmark Supreme Court decision Goldberg v. Kelly, which recognized the right for welfare recipients to receive notice and a fair hearing before being deprived of their benefits. That decision is still a major tool in NCLEJ litigation today. In NCLEJ’s 1970 case Califano v. Westcott, the Supreme Court held sex discrimination in public benefits policies to be unconstitutional.