Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 September 2026, 5:18 by Written By Denis Chabrol
The High Court has ordered Commissioner of Information (COI) Retired Justice Charles Ramson to process two requests by Chartered Accountant and civil society activist Christopher Ram within 60 days about ExxonMobil’s earnings and spending as well as its taxes paid to the Guyana government.
“The Commissioner shall process and determine the Applicant’s revenue and expenditure request in accordance with the Access to information as interpreted by this judgement,” Justice Nicola Pierre said in her 38-page judgement on a case brought Mr Ram who is also an attorney-at-law. The judge declined to order the Commissioner of Information to provide reasons for a substantive refusal which he did not make, but instead opted to require him to perform the statutory function “which he failed to perform.”
The other request dated 7 March 2025 concerned tax payments made by the Government of Guyana through the Ministry of Natural Resources in relation to the tax liabilities of the ExxonMobil-led consortium under the 2016 Petroleum Agreement. The request sought information concerning the amounts paid, tax assessment certificates,
compliance with Article 15.4 of the Petroleum Agreement and EIT! reporting.
The other request is about the operations of the Commissioner of Information’s office for 2015 to 2023.
Justice Pierre said the determinations shall be made and communicated to Mr Ram by November 27, 2026
If access to any requested document is granted, the Commissioner shall provide access in accordance with the Access To Information Act or if the Commissioner determines that a requested document does not exist or cannot, after a thorough and diligent search, be located, the Commissioner shall comply with the law and provide Mr Ram with the written notice and reasons required by that section, including his right to apply to the High
Court for judicial review.
Mr Ram had moved to the High Court after Mr Ramson failed to provide several pieces of information, largely on the grounds that requests must first be made to the relevant authorities. Mr Ram had also complied with that instruction but to no avail.
Mr Ram on March 7, 2025 had requested the accounting treatment and revenue receipts of the ExxonMobil-led consortium under the 2016 Petroleum Agreement. It sought information concerning amounts included in the annual estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2021 to 2025 and the accounting treatment of receipts which were not reflected in the Consolidated Fund.
The High Court also agreed with Mr Ram that the Commissioner of Information refused a request dated March 12, 2025 for annual reports of the operation of the Access To Information Act to the National Assembly for 2015 to 2023, reports to the minister about compliance with that law for 2011-2023, statistical information on requests processed under the act including number of requests received, granted, denied, and appealed from 2015-2023, , for the years 2015-2023 the public authorities which provided to the minister the reports required under the law for the preparation of the annual report. The Access To Information Act requires the minister to lay, as soon as practicable and no later than nine months after the end of each year, a report on the operation of the Act before the National Assembly.
“The documents and reports containing the information requested by the March 12 request are therefore ‘Official documents’ subject to the Act, in and of themselves and compellable. The documents are also official documents because for the reasons above this Court finds that the office of Commissioner of Information is a public authority within the meaning of the Act,” Justice Pierre said.
The judge deemed as unlawful the Commissioner of Information’s request that his office oversees public authorities, which are required to grant access information of a non-exempted classification. “The Act does not make a prior application to another public authority as a condition precedent to the processing of a request under sections 16 to 18,” she said.
She found that the Applicant made and the Commissioner received the three requests dated 7 March 2025 and 12 March 2025, and that those were valid requests that satisfied the requirements of the Act. Justice Pierre said the Commissioner’s correspondence requiring the Applicant first to approach another public authority did not constitute a determination of the requests. “That requirement was not imposed by the Act, was unlawful, and could not relieve the Commissioner of his statutory obligation to process and determine the applications,” she said.
The High Court says the request for information about the Commissioner of Information’s office did not amount to him being asked to “self-oversee” nor was it an attempt to place the Commissioner in the position of determining the propriety of his own conduct. “That is not the Commissioners role under the act, his is not the power to ‘oversee’ public authorities but to be ‘a clearing house for processing requests’ for information made under the Act [s.5(2}]. In any event the request was for official documents and information.
“| declare pursuant to section 18(3) of the Access to Information Act that the Commissioner is deemed to have refused access to the information requested in the Applicant’s letter dated 12th March, 2025,” the judge said.
As such, the court ordered the Commissioner of Information to process and determine Mr Ram’s 12 March
2025 request in keeping the Access to Information Act. “It would be most appropriate to require the Commissioner to perform the statutory function which he failed to perform, than to order the Respondent to provide reasons for a substantive refusal which he did not make,” she said.
Justice Pierre said the the Commissioner suggested that the applicant was not entitled to the documents because in his view his office was not a public authority, and gave an erroneous direction that Mr Ram first approach another public authority before his office would intervene, but did not expressly determine that the Mr Ram was not entitled to the documents. She reasoned that Mr Ramson’s letter of 24 March was not a refusal on the merits to which the requirements of section 23 could attach.
The Applicant’s first request dated 7 March 2025 concerned tax payments made by the
Government of Guyana through the Ministry of Natural Resources in relation to the tax
liabilities of the ExxonMobil-led consorttum under the 2016 Petroleum Agreement. The
request sought information concerning the amounts paid, tax assessment certificates,
compliance with Article 15.4 of the Petroleum Agreement and EIT! reporting.
This Court will not declare the Respondent failed to provide reasons for a substantive refusal,
because there is no evidence that a substantive refusal was made. The Court will direct the
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Commissioner to process and determine the Applicant’s requests in accordance with the
The 108.119 10Applicant’s Access to Request information dated Act 7as March interpreted 2025 Concerning by this Judgement. Revenue
At
paragraph 1, he again denies every averment of fact. At paragraph 2, he repeats and relies
upon his Affidavit in Defence. At paragraph 14, he states ‘Save where the exhibits attached to
the affidavit in reply filed by the applicant herein were authored by me | deny receipt of any
other from the applicant.’ This unfortunate approach falls outside the contemplation of CPR
2016 Rule 10.03{1} and the duty of candour on public officials in judicial review proceedings,
particularly tronic and lamentable in proceedings concerning the Access to Information Act and
the Commissioner of Information,
The effect of this paragraph is that the Commissioner accepts the documents exhibited to the
Affidavit in reply authored by him but otherwise maintains a general and bare denial of receipt
of the Applicant’s correspondence.
Having considered the Applicant’s exhibits and, in particular, the Commissioner’s own
correspondence, the Court finds the Commissioner’s general denial in his Affidavit in Rejoinder
does not create a genuine factual dispute as to the existence or receipt of correspondence
which is expressly acknowledged in his own letters, or which he himself authored and upon
which he relies.
38. The purpose for which leave was granted to file the Affidavit in Reply was achieved even with
the Rejoinder’s casuistry. The documentary evidence identifies the requests made, the
correspondence exchanged and the points at which the Commissioner acknowledged receipt.
The facts concerning the sending and receipt of the relevant correspondence are established
on the evidence before the Court.
39. What remains to be determined is whether the Commissioner’s responses to those requests
constituted compliance with his obligations under the Access to Information Act 2011.
The Applicant’s case is that the Commissioner received valid requests for information and failed
to exercise his statutory powers and duties in response. 0. The Applicant’s case is that the Commissioner received valid requests for information and failed
to exercise his statutory powers and duties in response.
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41. The Commissioner’s case is that he performed the functions of his office, that the relevant
information was the responsibility of other public authorities, and that the Applicant has not
established that the Commissioner unlawfully failed to deal with the requests
The Act therefore does not make the Commissioner’s status as a “public authority” the source
of the Court’s jurisdiction.
Source: Demerara Waves
