Almost 10 years after his appointment was blocked by Thabo Mbeki, Edwin Cameron has been confirmed as a judge of the Constitutional Court. Sello S Alcock quizzed him about how he sees his new job.
How did you find out about your appointment to the highest court in the land and what were you doing at the time?
I woke up quite early on New Year’s morning to missed calls and text and voice messages congratulating me, because the previous evening the Presidency had officially posted and gazetted my appointment. About a week earlier the chief justice had given me provisional word about my chances – but first President [Kgalema] Motlanthe had to complete the constitutional consultation process.
What does this elevation mean to you personally?
It is a wonderful challenge – an opportunity for personal and professional engagement at the heart of our country’s issues. I feel privileged and energised by the thought of working with my colleagues in that court on the hard choices that will confront us. I also feel I have been given a personal gift, since I have previously applied for that court, and this time it has come through.
What unique contributions do you feel you can make?
I hope that I will bring a mix of professional and personal capacities to the court’s work. In particular, I think that the eight years I spent as an appellate judge in Bloemfontein will help me to contribute constructively.
The Supreme Court of Appeal [SCA] is a very busy court, with a high turnover. It is also an efficient, perhaps over-efficient, court. Each SCA judge sits in about 50 appeals a year – more than double the Constitutional Court’s load. So, in the past eight years, I have prepared, heard and helped to decide about 400 appeals – in constitutional, family law, criminal, company law, contract, intellectual property, land rights, administrative law and socio-economic rights cases. That is a hard-trodden track record I hope will help.
You have said Thabo Mbeki blocked your selection in 1999 because of the court’s racial composition, and now you are replacing a black judge. Is that a sign of our maturing democracy?
Then-deputy president Mbeki’s intervention in 1999 has been confirmed to me first-hand by those closely involved in the events, and has also now been put on record by a writer said to be very close to him, Mathata Tsedu. Against that history, it is certainly an irony that I am now to succeed a black judge. I think it indicates more than a maturing democracy – it also indicates that, with the racial (though not yet gender) composition of the court broadly representative of our people, President Motlanthe didn’t think it necessary to apply rigidly numerical racial quotas to the court.
You’ve said you overstepped the mark by being so outspoken about Mbeki’s stance on HIV/Aids, but also that your public stance was justified. Will you be so outspoken in future?
I overstepped the line that rightly bars judges from entering the political fray except when the cases before them require it. But I felt justified by the extreme crisis in lives, suffering and public morality that presidential Aids denialism caused. I ardently hope to remain a quietly diligent, low-profile judge, deciding cases and defending and explaining constitutional values in and outside court.
Is the relationship between the executive, the judiciary and the ruling ANC strained?
Certainly – as it is in any mature or maturing democracy. At Christmas I met a former senior law officer in Tony Blair’s cabinet. It was extraordinary to hear how similar the separation of powers tensions are in our two countries. Our particular vulnerability is that government should become more accustomed to the fact that it is the job of judges to curb their power according to law, and that judges should perhaps become more thick-skinned when politicians breathe fire when displeased about that. In the end, our only recourse is our system of constitutional values, and that should remain sacrosanct, no matter how much fiery political talk there is about judges’ decisions.
Will more ”political” cases come before the South African courts, and what should be the Constitutional Court’s role?
It has only one role – to hold true to the law and the Constitution, without personal loyalty, political predilection or institutional timidity.
How do you view the ANC’s proposal to turn the Constitutional Court into an apex court on all matters, including criminal ones?
As my colleague Carole Lewis recently pointed out, the ANC proposal is correct – to ensure a single, coherent court structure. But it means the apex court must be staffed by judges with experience in all areas of the law – not just constitutional law.
What’s the first thing you’ll do on your first day in the job?
First I’ll go to the chambers of Chief Justice Pius Langa to say good morning to him. Then my new chambers, those previously occupied by Justice Madala. Then I’ll visit the library and the courtroom itself.
Will you continue to be involved in the community?
My involvement with children’s organisations and homes, in Aids work, with academic issues and in the gay and lesbian community forms a profound part of my life. I hope to continue and to expand this.
A distinguished pedigree
Cameron was born on February 15 1953 in Pretoria and educated at Pretoria Boys’ High School. He studied at the universities of Stellenbosch and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and won top academic awards.
Under apartheid he was a leading human rights lawyer and was appointed a judge in 1994 by then president Nelson Mandela.
Cameron was a powerful critic of president Mbeki’s Aids-denialist policies and wrote a prize-winning memoir, Witness to Aids, which has been published in South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany — and will soon be published in China.
He has received many honours for his legal and human rights work, including a special award from the Bar of England and Wales in 2002 for his ”contribution to international jurisprudence and the protection of human rights”. He has been elected an honorary fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies, London, an honorary fellow of Keble College, Oxford (2003), and an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple, London (2008). — Belinda Beresford