Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
* An earlier version of this article erroneously said the Court of Appeal had declined Kyung Yup Kim's application for leave to appeal his extradition to China.
A New Zealand resident who has been fighting extradition to China for a more than a decade has lost a related case before the Court of Appeal.
Kyung Yup Kim has been accused of killing a woman in Shanghai in 2009, with the Chinese government seeking his extradition since 2011.
In late 2015, then-Justice Minister Amy Adams determined that Kim should be extradited after seeking diplomatic assurances from China as to his treatment.
Kim, who came to live in New Zealand in his teenage years, has been fighting against the decision while denying any involvement in the death of Peiyun Chen.
If extradited, Kim claimed he would be subjected to torture by the Chinese government and an unfair trial.
In the latest case, Kim was challenging a High Court decision that meant government ministries did not have to disclose information bearing on his extradition to China.
He sought leave to take his case to the Court of Appeal, but on Friday that court dismissed his application.
It was the latest in a series of cases before the courts.
In 2022, the Supreme Court upheld a decision to surrender him on the basis that diplomatic assurances secured by New Zealand showed there was no such risk of torture.
In late 2023, the current minister of justice, Paul Goldsmith, advised Kim that there was no legal barrier to extradition and the next step would be to issue an extradition order.
When Kim sought an investigation into the risk posed by extradition to China, asserting that there had been developments and changes in circumstances since the original investigation, Goldsmith responded in early 2024 that the decision to surrender was still appropriate and attached an extradition order, according to the court decision on Friday.
Kim brought applications to require disclosure, but his applications were declined by the High Court before he sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
In his application for leave to appeal, Kim claimed the judge framed the issues too narrowly, and the approach required proceedings that involve substantive review of compliance with human rights obligations.
The Crown opposed the application.
In the decision, Judge Patricia Courtney said the application for leave to appeal was declined.
"We do not consider that the proposed grounds of appeal are arguable, nor that they raise arguable questions which justify leave being granted to appeal an interlocutory decision," Judge Courtney said.
