SaltWire E-Edition

Supreme Court allows access to murdered billionaires’ estate files

OTTAWA — Canada’s Supreme Court on Friday ordered the estate files of a slain Canadian pharmaceutical billionaire couple to be unsealed, reasserting the principle that court proceedings should be public in a case led by the Toronto Star newspaper.

Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were found hanging by belts from a railing at their Toronto mansion in late 2017, a crime police are investigating as a targeted double murder. No one has been charged.

Trustees were appointed to handle the couple’s affairs, and the estate files were sealed by a judge, denying Toronto Star reporter Kevin Donovan access to them and setting in motion a three-year court battle that ended on Friday.

Canada’s nine justices unanimously agreed that the couple’s files should never have been held back.

“There is a strong presumption in favor of open courts,” the court wrote. In this case the arguments for withholding the documents were never strong enough. (Reuters)

OBITUARIES

en-ca

2021-06-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281857236480423

SaltWire Network