So much for respecting one’s final wishes.
An Ontario judge last week overturned the last will and testament of Rector Emanuel Spence because he didn’t like Spence’s rationale for leaving his wealth to one daughter instead of both.
According to the National Post, Spence, a Jamaican-born man who died in 2012, disowned his youngest daughter when he learned she was pregnant with a white man’s child.
It is alleged that Spence refused all contact with his grandson and referred to the child as his daughter’s “bastard white son.”
When Spence had his last will drawn up in 2010, he decided to leave his $400,000 fortune exclusively to his other daughter “largely out of anger and spite,” as the Post put it.
The Post article makes no mention of mental incompetency on Spence’s part, so it would seem he was of sound mind.
The judge in the case, Justice C.A. Gilmore, wrote in his decision that Spence’s reasoning “offends not only human sensibilities but also public policy,” according to the Post.
With that, Gilmore used the heavy hand of his courtroom to hit Spence with a posthumous punishment: his estate will be split between both daughters.
No one can possibly defend Spence’s alleged actions. If true, they represent a reprehensible, incomprehensible side of humanity that rightly sickens us.
But Spence was also a citizen in a free country. Even if we are offended by his opinions, he had every right to bestow his worldly possessions to whomever he wanted for whatever reasons he wanted.
Gilmore’s ruling enters precarious territory. Suddenly the very personal decision of whom we name in our will, and why, must be justified not only to ourselves, but also to the all-knowing state.
It is also important to note that Spence is no longer with us to explain his actions. The information on which Gilmore based his verdict comes from allegations of what Spence did and said, not from any personal contact with the man himself.
Perhaps there were far more virtuous reasons for Spence to omit one of his daughters from his will. We will never know for sure, and that makes Gilmore’s ruling all the more troubling.
As Canadians, we have a basic right to make decisions in our own lives that other people may not like. That right shouldn’t end at death.
Jonathon Naylor is editor of The Reminder.
