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".
Comilang v Commissioner of Registration
Comilang was successful in obtaining leave to seek judicial review against the tribunal's decision. She received Legal Aid and was represented by Daly & Associates, which instructed barrister Gladys Li. Justice Johnson Lam of the Court of First Instance ruled against Comilang in June 2012. One complex legal question partially addressed by Lam's judgment was whether or not the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is incorporated in Hong Kong law, and to what extent it imposes obligations on the Hong Kong government. In prior cases, most Hong Kong judges had declined to rule on this issue at all; they addressed only the simpler legal question of whether or not a claimant's rights under the ICESCR had been violated, and having found in all such cases that no violation had occurred, they were able to avoid the need to examine the question of incorporation. However, Lam observed (at para. 54):