Justice Edwin Cameron is a former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and was appointed Inspecting Judge of Correctional Services on 6 January 2020 after 25 years’ service as a Judge. He is currently also Chancellor of Stellenbosch University.
His love of knowledge continued, as he lectured young minds in Latin and Classical Studies, before continuing his studies at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. A BA in Jurisprudence and the BCL, with honours and prizes.
Cameron received his LLB from the University of South Africa and received the medal for the best law graduate. He practised at the Johannesburg Bar from 1983 to 1994. From 1986 he was a human rights lawyer based at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Ap-plied Legal Studies (CALS), where he was awarded a personal professorship in law. His practice included labour and employment law; defence of ANC fighters charged with treason; conscientious and religious objection; land tenure and forced removals; and gay and lesbian equality.
From 1988 he advised the National Union of Mineworkers on AIDS/HIV, and helped draft and negotiate the industry’s first comprehensive AIDS agreement with the Chamber of Mines. While at CALS, he drafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, co-founded the AIDS Consortium (a national affiliation of non-governmental organizations working in AIDS), which he chaired for its first three years, and founded and was the first director of the AIDS Law Project.
He oversaw the gay and lesbian movement’s submissions to the Kempton Park negotiating process. This, with other work, helped secure the express inclusion of sexual orientation in the South African Constitution.
In September 1994, he was awarded silk (senior counsel status). President Mandela appointed him an acting judge and later a judge of the High Court. In 1999/2000 he served for a year as an Acting Justice at the Constitutional Court. In 2000 he was appointed a Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
He was appointed a Justice of the Constitutional Court in 2008, till his retirement. President Ramaphosa appointed him to the position of Inspecting Judge for the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) and commenced duty on the 6th of January 2020.
Prior to his arrival at JICS, he was actively involved in visiting correctional centres as a Judge empowered by section 99 of the CSA. To highlight one, Judge Cameron and a team of law clerks from the Constitutional Court visited Pollsmoor Correctional Centre on the 23rd of April 2015. This visit and subsequent report were instrumental in highlighting the plight of inmates at Pollsmoor and eventually led to the Saldanha Ruling in 2017 and the reduction in remand detainees at Pollsmoor.
JICS is an independent oversight body tasked with overseeing the correctional operations of the Department of Correctional Services and protecting the rights of all incarcerated persons. JICS reports to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services and the Minister of Correctional Services.
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Email: Complaints@jics.gov.za
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