34 Facts About Edwin Cameron

Edwin Cameron's father was imprisoned for car theft and his mother did not have the means to support him.

Edwin Cameron therefore spent much of his childhood in an orphanage in Queenstown.

And, in 1987, Edwin Cameron argued that three senior South African judges, including its former Chief Justice, Pierre Rabie, ought to resign to preserve the legitimacy of the judiciary.

Edwin Cameron practised at the Johannesburg Bar from 1983 to 1994.

Edwin Cameron's practice included labour and employment law; defence of African National Congress fighters charged with treason; conscientious and religious objection; land tenure and forced removals; and gay and lesbian equality.

Edwin Cameron's report was described as a "hard-hitting" critique of Armscor's conduct, but was quickly eclipsed by myriad other allegations about the South African government's illegal arms trades.

Edwin Cameron's judgment was described as a "most rigorous exposition" of the Constitution's application to private disputes and a "landmark" defence of free speech.

Edwin Cameron's position was substantially confirmed, in subsequent cases, by the Supreme Court of Appeal.

The Judicial Service Commission had recommended that Edwin Cameron be permanently appointed, but Sandile Ngcobo was ultimately preferred due to the late intercession of Thabo Mbeki, then Deputy President, who felt the appointee should be black.

Edwin Cameron has said there is "no doubt" this was the correct decision.

Edwin Cameron was instead appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal, where he served for eight years.

In Minister of Finance v Gore, Edwin Cameron co-authored a judgment with Fritz Brand that held the state could be delictually liable for causing pure economic loss by fraud.

Edwin Cameron was considered a crucial member of the Court's progressive wing.

Edwin Cameron retired on 20 August 2019, the 25th anniversary of his appointment to the bench.

Edwin Cameron addressed the crowd in the first pride parade in South Africa held in Johannesburg on 13 October 1990.

Edwin Cameron is one of 29 signatories to the Yogyakarta Principles.

Edwin Cameron had himself contracted HIV in the 1980s and became extremely ill with AIDS when working as a High Court judge.

Edwin Cameron's salary allowed him to afford anti-retroviral treatment, which saved his life.

Edwin Cameron has strongly criticised President Thabo Mbeki's AIDS-denialist policies.

Edwin Cameron's prize-winning first memoir, Witness to AIDS, is about his struggle with the illness.

In 2008, at the 17th International AIDS Conference held in Mexico, Edwin Cameron called for a sustained and vocal campaign against HIV criminalization.

Edwin Cameron has been a vocal critic of the use of "Stalingrad" tactics in litigation.

Edwin Cameron has proposed a range of solutions, including firmer institutional discipline and, in exceptional cases, the imposition of time limits on the start and finalisation of criminal trials.

In 2009 Edwin Cameron was appointed as an Honorary Master of the Bench of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.

Edwin Cameron is an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Edwin Cameron was, until 2015, the general secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships in Southern Africa and is a patron of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal.

Edwin Cameron was the subject of a complaint to the Judicial Service Commission, alleging that he had failed to declare a potential conflict of interest in relation to a case before the Constitutional Court.

Edwin Cameron was approached in 2019 by the vice chancellor of Stellenbosch University to offer him the position of university chancellor while a case was pending before the Court on the university's language policy.

Edwin Cameron declined the offer and offered the parties full disclosure of all pertinent correspondence and contacts.

Edwin Cameron subsequently accepted and took up the post of Chancellor.

In 2023, Edwin Cameron appeared before Parliament during enquiries into the May 2022 escape of convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester.

Edwin Cameron indicated that he approached GroundUp after becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the investigations and lack of urgency to apprehend Bester.

Edwin Cameron provided GroundUp with a High Court interdict launched by Bester's alleged accomplice, Nandipha Magudumana, and a High Court judges' report which mentioned the results of the post-mortem of the body found in Bester's cell.

Edwin Cameron was a board member of GroundUp at the time, which is an unpaid position with no role in editorial decisions, and the editor Nathan Geffen was one of his close friends.