Death of access to information

Apr 15, 2025 Editorial, News

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Editorial…

Kaieteur News- In recent weeks, media workers and other rights activists have been picketing the office of the Commissioner of Information in protest of the non-functioning of that State agency and the lack of accountability and transparency by the office holder, Senior Counsel, Charles Ramson.

The response by President Irfaan was typical, “I have seen a few persons, most of whom are opposition critics, who are there protesting. I have seen that image. But if you look at who is out there and the agenda, it tells a different story to the public,” Stabroek News reported.

Guyana has known no other commissioner of information since the Access to Information Act was enacted here in 2011. Ramson, a former attorney general has been a total failure, delivering nothing to Guyanese who seek the services of his office, but the current administration seems unbothered. This is probably not surprising to many especially those in the media because the PPP/C has been notorious for ducking and hiding important information from the public and someone like Ramson is the perfect servant for their policy.

It must be recalled that for Guyana to even get to the place where it has a Freedom of Information Act took tremendous lobbying and even protest. It is disappointing though, that to even get the act to work requires another round of protest. The PPP/C especially Bharrat Jagdeo has long seen freedom of information as a threat, his record of suppressing media freedoms, threatening and insulting journalists and media houses is well documented. Throughout his tenure, although it was under his presidency the act came into being, he did nothing to ensure that it worked. Today, amidst all the global spotlight on Guyana and the administration boasts of being transparent, we have in place, a defective FOI act and an obdurate commissioner that ensures the death freedom of information.

It is very unfortunate that in this age, we have leaders insisting on untrammeled freedom of action for themselves. However, the experience of countries that have enacted the legislation for a while now, such as Canada, has demonstrated that on the whole, the governance of the State is enhanced.

Steven Langdon, a former Canadian MP and who had direct experience with the legislation in Canada had this to say in a paper titled ‘Transparency and Good governance the role of freedom of information laws in Canada,’

“Improved governance has become an important goal of State reform in recent years. International development theory has increasingly recognised that the effectiveness with which resources are allocated, the responsiveness to public priorities and the integrity of State financial systems are all fundamental to poverty reduction and economic development. In turn, transparency has become a central defining characteristic of improved governance; open, participatory and accountable governments are what will help bring about stronger economic performance and greater social solidarity, by encouraging integrity and citizen engagement, thereby building the social capital that theorists like Robert Putnam identify as bringing communities together and making democracy work. Yet transparency does not grow automatically. As the World Bank Institute has noted, “openness can be embarrassing for governments and public servants at times, but the record should suggest to political representatives that openness and transparency are also crucial in the areas of effective financial management, successful policy coordination, and integrity-building.”

He underscored that the core thinking for FOI Laws is the philosophy that all governmental work and actions should be open to a country’s citizens, since those citizens represent the basis of the government; their full participation in all decision-making requires such access to complete information, and governments should be doing nothing that cannot be justified and explained openly.

This concept, he said must be recognised, represents a complete turnaround in traditional concepts of governance that were based on State control over information, and the notion of an elite making decisions based on knowledge which cannot be shared with the public.

In his paper, Langdon also drew attention to the new approach reflected in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in which the right to information is established as part of the guarantee of freedom of expression. Article 19 ties Freedom of Information tightly to the most fundamental personal freedoms in the constellation of human rights, freedom of opinion and expression: “Everyone has the right to the freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

This, he said, represented the philosophic framework that justified the fight for access to information. In practical terms, the drive for FOI has come from a series of considerations such as media freedom, which generates considerable pressure to be able to access all available documents, so as to enforce accountability and explain decisions to readers. There is the corporate sector that has often sought information on which to raise challenges to the increasing range of regulatory rulings to which firms are subject in addition to specific environmental considerations, with their complex analyses of effects and their webs of unexpected consequences.

As observed by Langdon and is currently the situation here, the expansion of civil society groups has also led to increasingly organized efforts to influence decisions, and information access has been needed to succeed in those efforts. Here in Guyana, access to information is also tied to anti-corruption concerns, therefore, establishing principles of transparency and participation within society can serve as a counter to corrupt practices.

It is our hope that rather than labeling the ongoing protest at Ramson’s office as political and trying to distance the executive from the abysmal performance of the commissioner, President Ali would cause an inquiry to be held into his work and ensure that the office of the Commissioner of Information ceases from being another hangout spot for one of the PPP’s bigwigs.

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