Northern Mariana Islands · Open Government Act of 1992

The CNMI Open Government Act — ten days to produce, and a court that orders compliance in forty-eight hours

AccessPoint manages public-records requests under the Open Government Act of 1992 (1 CMC § 9901 et seq.) — records available for inspection within ten days with no statutory extension, the § 9918 exemptions and privacy carve-out, and Superior Court enforcement with an immediate hearing and a forty-eight-hour compliance order — pre-configured for the Commonwealth and running inside your own Microsoft 365 tenant.

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Northern Mariana Islands at a glance

Response standard
Records made available for inspection within ten days of the request — the Act sets no extension and does not limit the count to working days
Enforcement
No administrative appeal — mandamus or injunction in the Superior Court, heard immediately and with priority (§ 9916)
Exemptions
The § 9918 exemptions plus the privacy carve-out for personal information
Charges
Inspection is free; copies at actual cost
Oversight
CNMI Superior Court — a forty-eight-hour compliance order and attorney fees to a prevailing requester
Languages
English

Built for Northern Mariana Islands

One platform for the whole access-and-privacy mandate, pre-configured for this regime and running in your own Microsoft 365 tenant.

Open Government Act lifecycle

Intake to release under 1 CMC § 9901 et seq. — the request logged on arrival, the search tasked, any § 9918 exemption cited, and inspection or copies inside ten days — all on Microsoft 365.

Ten days, no extension

The Act gives a custodian ten days to make a record available and offers no unusual-circumstances extension. AccessPoint computes the date on receipt and escalates day by day, because there is no second deadline to fall back on.

The § 9918 exemptions and the privacy carve-out

Each enumerated § 9918 category ships as a citable exemption, with the privacy carve-out for personal information alongside — carried onto the redaction and into the response a court may review within days.

Redaction by exemption

Apply the § 9918 exemptions line by line on a colour-coded, audit-trailed redaction record — each redaction tied to the category it relies on.

Built for the immediate hearing

A petition under § 9916 gets an immediate hearing and priority, and an unlawful denial draws a forty-eight-hour compliance order. AccessPoint's timestamped file — receipt, search, exemption, release — is ready to put before the court the day it is asked.

In your own tenant

Every request and record stays inside your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant — no third-party cloud, no cross-border transfers, and no per-user fees.

Forty-eight hours

In the Commonwealth, a wrongful denial is undone faster than the request was due.

The Open Government Act gives a custodian ten days to make a record available and offers no extension. What makes that clock unusual is the remedy behind it. Under § 9916 a person denied a record goes straight to the Superior Court, which must give the matter an immediate hearing and priority over other business, and where the denial is unlawful orders the record produced within forty-eight hours — while the custodian, once sued, may not alter or destroy the record at issue. A prevailing requester recovers attorney fees. The whole sequence — request, ten days, petition, hearing, order — can run inside a month. AccessPoint is built for that pace: the due date computed on receipt, the § 9918 ground cited on every withholding, and a timestamped file the custodian can put before the court the day it is asked.

Ten days, no extension The only deadline the Act offers, computed on receipt.
Immediate hearing, priority A § 9916 petition goes to the front of the Superior Court's list.
Compliance in forty-eight hours The order that follows an unlawful denial.

Configured out of the box

Installing the us-mp-oga jurisdiction pack seeds your tenant with everything this regime needs — a starting point you can adjust, not a lock-in.

Pack content last reviewed: 2026-09-03

Related guide: FOI Workflow Quick Check
  • The Open Government Act of 1992 (1 CMC § 9901 et seq.) as the legal-authority and citation spine
  • The Commonwealth holiday calendar and the ten-day due-date rule with no extension
  • The § 9918 exemptions and the privacy carve-out, colour-coded for redaction and citable line by line
  • Free inspection and actual-cost copy charges, itemized
  • Commonwealth timeliness tracking that escalates before day ten — the only deadline the Act offers
  • A litigation hold that freezes the record at issue when a petition is filed
  • The Superior Court record — the timestamped trail for an immediate hearing and a forty-eight-hour compliance order
  • Open Government Act correspondence templates with statutory wording
A jurisdiction pack's detail panel in AccessPoint settings, showing the pack description, version, what's new, and the checklist of items it imports: legal authorities, calendars, request statuses, request types, extension reasons, requestor categories and consultation types Click to enlarge
What a pack looks like in Settings (the Ontario municipal pack shown): the description, the version and what changed in it, and every item it imports with its statutory basis. Anything you have customized is never overwritten on update.

Northern Mariana Islands Questions

How long does a CNMI agency have to produce records?
Ten days from the request, with no statutory extension. The Act counts days, not working days. AccessPoint computes the date on receipt over the Commonwealth's holiday calendar and escalates as it approaches, because there is no second deadline to fall back on.

What happens in court if a record is wrongly withheld?
Under § 9916 the requester may seek mandamus or an injunction in the Superior Court, which must give the matter an immediate hearing and priority. Where the denial is unlawful the court orders compliance within forty-eight hours, the custodian may not alter or destroy the record at issue once the petition is filed, and a prevailing requester recovers attorney fees. AccessPoint's timestamped file is built to be put before that court on short notice.

What can be withheld, and what can be charged?
Only the records within the enumerated § 9918 exemptions, or protected by the Act's privacy carve-out for personal information, may be withheld — and the category relied on should be cited on each withholding. Inspection is free; copies are charged at actual cost. AccessPoint ships each exemption as a citable ground and itemizes the copy charge on the file.

Where does data reside?
Entirely within your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant. Requests, documents, and audit history never leave your control — no third-party cloud, no vendor access, and no cross-border data transfers.

Go deeper

AccessPoint for Alabama A brand-new response clock, layered on Alabama's 1981 Stone balancing test AccessPoint for Alaska Silence is a denial, then a two-step appeal — agency head, then superior court AccessPoint for Arizona Open records on a balancing test, no exemption list FOI request management software The full request lifecycle — computed deadlines, records collection, redaction, audit. AccessPoint vs. GovQA Granicus Records Request Management — requests only, vendor cloud. AccessPoint vs. NextRequest CivicPlus's public-records platform — strong portal, vendor cloud only.

Flat annual pricing, published in full. Every feature in every size — access requests, privacy impact assessments, breach response, complaints, video & audio redaction, and AI Assist. No per-user or per-module fees.

  • Under 500 employees$2,990/yr
  • 500–2,000 employees$7,990/yr
  • Over 2,000 employees$14,990/yr

See full pricing Build the business case

Run the CNMI Open Government Act in One Platform

Try AccessPoint free for 30 days, pre-configured for the Northern Mariana Islands. No credit card required.

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