In a landmark ruling centered on governmental transparency and energy sector accountability, Guyana’s High Court has mandated retired Justice Charles Ramson, the country’s Commissioner of Information (COI), to resolve three long-pending freedom of information requests filed by prominent civil society activist and dual-qualified chartered accountant and attorney Christopher Ram by November 27, 2026. The ruling, delivered in a 38-page judgment by Justice Nicola Pierre, marks a critical rebuke of the COI’s years-long delay in addressing requests focused on ExxonMobil’s operations in Guyana’s oil sector and the COI’s own institutional reporting under the 2011 Access to Information Act.
Ram submitted three separate formal requests for information in March 2025, all of which Ramson failed to process after requiring Ram to first submit the requests to other relevant public authorities – a step Ram complied with, only to still receive no formal decision on his applications. Two of the three requests focus exclusively on transparency around the ExxonMobil-led oil consortium operating under Guyana’s 2016 Petroleum Agreement. The first asks for detailed records of the consortium’s tax payments made through the Ministry of Natural Resources, including specific documentation of total amounts paid, official tax assessment certificates, proof of compliance with Article 15.4 of the 2016 agreement, and data aligned with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) reporting standards. The second ExxonMobil-related request seeks financial data on the consortium’s annual revenue and spending between 2021 and 2025, as well as clarification on the accounting treatment of any revenues that were not recorded in Guyana’s national Consolidated Fund.
The third request, filed March 12, 2025, seeks institutional transparency from the COI’s own office, calling for all annual operational reports on the Access to Information Act submitted to Guyana’s National Assembly between 2015 and 2023, compliance reports submitted to the responsible minister between 2011 and 2023, full statistical breakdowns of all information requests processed under the act (including counts of requests received, granted, denied, and appealed) for the 2015–2023 period, and a list of all public authorities that submitted required compliance reports to the minister during that timeframe. Under Guyana’s Access to Information Act, the responsible minister is legally required to lay an annual operational report before the National Assembly no later than nine months after the close of each calendar year.
In her judgment, Justice Pierre firmly rejected the COI’s core arguments, including his claim that Ram was required to submit requests to other public authorities before applying to his office, and his assertion that his own office does not qualify as a public authority subject to information requests under the act. The judge clarified that the Access to Information Act does not impose any requirement for prior application to another agency as a precondition for processing requests under sections 16 to 18 of the law. She further confirmed that all records requested in the March 12 application qualify as official documents held by a public authority, making them legally compellable under the act.
Pierre also pushed back against the COI’s claim that fulfilling the request for his office’s records would amount to forcing him to “self-oversee” his own conduct. She emphasized that the COI’s statutory role is that of a central clearinghouse for processing information requests, not an oversight body for other agencies, and that the request merely seeks existing official records, not a review of the COI’s own actions. The judge also formally criticized the COI’s defensive legal approach during the proceedings, noting that his blanket denial of receiving most of Ram’s correspondence failed to meet the standards of candour required of public officials in judicial review cases – particularly in a case centered on freedom of information. Pierre found that the existing documentary evidence, including correspondence authored by the COI himself, clearly confirmed that the COI received all three of Ram’s valid, legally compliant requests, and that his requirement for Ram to first approach other agencies did not constitute a formal decision on the applications as required by law.
In her final orders, Pierre ruled that the COI’s inaction amounted to a de facto refusal of the March 12 request, and ordered him to process all three requests in full compliance with the Access to Information Act and the terms of her judgment within the 60-day window. She specified that if the COI grants access to any requested records, he must provide them in accordance with statutory procedures. If he determines that a requested document does not exist or cannot be located after a thorough search, he must provide Ram with formal written notice, explicit reasons for the denial, and clear information about Ram’s right to pursue further judicial review. Pierre declined to order the COI to provide reasons for a substantive refusal that he never formally issued, instead opting to enforce the statutory duty he had failed to carry out: processing and deciding on the pending requests.