Bermuda takes part in first global Pati ‘stress test’
Bermuda has taken part in a global “stress test” of public access to information laws, said to be the first of its kind ever conducted.
The Royal Gazette, along with organisations and individuals from around the world, volunteered to submit two Pati requests to public authorities on behalf of the Centre for Law and Democracy, a non-profit human rights organisation in Canada.
The results were mixed for the island, where the Department of Health responded with full disclosure in the legislated time frame and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources failed to give a decision.
The CLD’s report on the stress test, released on September 28 — the International Day for Universal Access to Information — said “mute refusals or no substantive reply at all” were the “worst possible outcome”.
“Mute responses are a fundamental denial of the right to information,” the report said. “If requests go unanswered, the right exists only on paper.
“’No response erodes trust, blocks oversight and kills stories.”
Jason Outerbridge, the island’s Information Commissioner, said last week: “The two CLD-authored ‘test access to information requests’ that were processed here in Bermuda provide a small snapshot into the performance of two public authorities.
“It is not indicative of Bermuda’s overall performance with Pati responses and Pati implementation.”
The CLD study, supported by Unesco, aimed to submit the same two requests for information — one on Covid vaccines and the other on pollution — in as many as possible of the 140 countries with right to information laws.
It obtained results from 146 requests in 76 countries, in what it said was the “first and most comprehensive RTI ‘stress test’ ever carried out on a global scale”.
The report said: “Although two requests are not enough to assess how well each country is doing, the exercise certainly provided a global thermometer on how well these laws are being implemented.”
The Centre for Law and Democracy report found that only three out of 76 countries charged fees for the public access to information requests made as part of the test, describing the “low incidence” as “encouraging”.
“The virtual absence of fees being charged is one of the positive outcomes of this testing exercise,” it said.
A change to the law last year means that Bermuda — where Pati was enacted a decade ago — upon commencement of the amendments, can begin charging fees for requests.
The legislation provided that public authorities would be allowed to charge requesters $60 an hour for requests that exceed 16 hours to process, while requests that take more than 100 hours to complete could be rejected.
The CLD report said that the “vast majority of volunteers who received information” as part of its global study reported that no fees were charged.
“Indeed, fees were charged in only three countries: in one country of approximately US$5.66 for both requests, in another of approximately $2.03 (with additional fees to be determined subsequently) for the environmental question and approximately $6.06 for the vaccine question, and in another where an approximately $3.62 application fee was charged for both requests.”
The Gazette submitted the Pati requests for the CLD on June 18, when the Department of Health was asked for a list of the Covid vaccines it bought between 2020 and 2023, and a request was made to the DENR for records of the five environmental incidents between 2021 and 2024 which were the most costly in terms of required remediation measures.
The health department acknowledged the request that day and disclosed the records in full within the six-week time frame set out in the Public Access to Information Act.
The DENR also acknowledged receipt the same day and asked for details on the “types of environmental incidents” to which the request referred.
The information officer wrote: “Please note that we administer clean-up/reports/fines of fuel/oil spills (on land and on the sea), sewage discharges from boats into the near-shore, fuel leaks from abandoned and derelict vessels under the Government-Keep Bermuda Beautiful memorandum of understanding, emissions to the air, damage of protected species, etc.
“These are the types of incidents that could all lead to some element of remediation.
“There are also other types of environmental incidents where remediation is not applicable.”
The Gazette responded to say the request sought records of the five most costly remediation works of all the kinds of incidents that required remediation.
No further correspondence was received and the department did not issue an initial decision in the statutory time frame.
The Gazette then sought an internal review from the head of the authority, the permanent secretary, on August 6, and received an out-of-office message. The Gazette failed to forward the request to the acting head and no decision was received within six weeks.
The CLD report said: “A mute refusal is generally considered to be the worst possible outcome in terms of how well an RTI system is working.
“In most cases, it represents no substantive engagement at all with an applicant although, in some cases, receipts were provided against requests or demands to clarify the request were made.”
The CLD allocated 30 days for public authorities to respond to the Pati requests because, it said, the initial deadline for responding to requests is 30 days or fewer in most countries.
That means the health department’s disclosure would have been “formally classified as late” for the purposes of the study, even though it was within the 42 days allowed under Bermuda’s Pati Act.
“The overall average time taken to respond to requests [globally] was 22.06 calendar days, which is a decent result,” said the report.
“About a quarter of these [22] came in after the 30 days allocated … but only six responses came in after 50 days.”
Toby Mendel, the executive director of CLD, said in a statement: “The global RTI stress test exercise really highlights key implementation challenges with RTI laws globally, with a high rate of mute refusals but, positively, a higher rate of some information being provided and almost no reasoned refusals [ie, refusals based on exceptions].
“Regionally, Central and Eastern Europe did the best, overall, with the Arab region coming in last place, Africa being the weakest after that, and Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, and Western Europe and North America all fairly close together in the middle.”
The centre said it hoped the testing exercise would “help reinvigorate campaigns for better implementation of public access to information laws in countries around the world”.
Mr Outerbridge said on Friday that the Information Commissioner’s Office supported the CLD’s work in its efforts to enhance access to information rights globally.
“Fittingly, too, in Unesco’s 2025 global assessment for sustainable development goal 16.10.2, which measures countries’ adoption and implementation of public access to information, Bermuda achieved the highest score of nine for the strength of our Pati regime,” he added.
“The ICO appreciates The Royal Gazette’s participation in CLD’s global right to information stress test so that Bermuda could be represented in the aggregate results for the Latin America and Caribbean region.”
Mr Outerbridge said: “For accurate statistics and data on the overall Pati performance of Bermuda’s public authorities, the ICO directs the public to our website, ico.bm, and our annual report.”
• Total number of Pati requests reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office over ten years, as at year end December 31, 2024: 1,416
• Total number of failure to decide decisions issued by the Information Commissioner over ten years, as at month end September 30, 2025: 93
• Percentage of public authorities’ initial responses to a Pati request granted access in part or in full for 2024, as at year end December 31, 2024: 39 per cent
• Data provided by Jason Outerbridge, the Information Commissioner
He added: “The ICO continues to work with public authorities who face challenges meeting their Pati obligations so that we can improve the experience of requesters and ensure that the right of access is provided to the greatest extent possible under the law.
“Bermuda, ten years since our Pati Act took effect, can be proud of our Pati regime — one where access to information rights are valued, secure and upheld.
“Openness and transparency are made real because individuals continue to make Pati requests, because information officers continue to work diligently to process Pati requests, because public authorities strive to proactively disclose more information and because stakeholders, community groups and engaged citizens continue to ask questions and challenge public officials.”
• To read the Centre for Law and Democracy report, and the health department’s disclosures, see Related Media
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