Fridae

South African Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Edwin Cameron, who is openly gay and openly HIV-positive, has been named to the Constitutional Court, the country's highest.

President Kgalema Motlanthe announced the appointment on Dec 31 last year, a day before Judge Cameron officially took up the position as one of the court's 11 judges following the retirement of Justice Tholakele Madala.

The 55-year-old former human rights lawyer is the author of several books including Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (1995) and bestselling autobiography Witness to AIDS in which he strongly criticised the Thabo Mbeki government's Aids denialism. The book was a joint winner of the 2006 Sunday Times/Alan Paton Prize, South Africa's premier literary award for non-fiction.

The South African Lesbian and Gay Equality Project in a Jan 1 statement hailed the appointment.

"Judge Cameron, the first openly gay and HIV positive person to hold one of the seats in our country's highest court, now becomes worldwide the first person to hold such a position in the highest court of any country. He was among the few lawyers who defended anti-apartheid activists against the old regime and he is known for his criticism of the SA government on HIV/AIDS policies. Judge Cameron also set the legal strategy for the country's constitutional and legal reform on the rights of lesbian and gay people," the statement read.

He has been compared to High Court judge Justice Michael Kirby of Australia who is openly gay and a noted champion of LGBT rights internationally. He will retire from the High Court - the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy - in February as he turns 70 this year. He came out as a gay man by naming his male partner publicly three years after he was appointed to the High Court in 1996.

South Africa's post-apartheid constitution was the first one in the world to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. In November 2006, South Africa became the fifth country, and the first in Africa, to legalise same-sex marriage. Gay sex acts are illegal in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and most other sub-Saharan African countries.