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)
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2021-06-12T07:00:00.0000000Z
2021-06-12T07:00:00.0000000Z
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