Justice Edwin Cameron was hailed on Tuesday as a courageous South African who has continually stood up for the rights of the marginalised in society and upheld the Constitution with his integrity and intellect during his 25 years as a judge and more than 11 years in the Constitutional Court.

Cameron, who is retiring, delivered his final judgment in the court on Tuesday before a special session was held to honour his service to South Africa as an activist, jurist and judge.

His colleagues, government leaders and representatives from legal associations celebrated his work in the apex court and spoke glowingly of his work ethic, integrity and commitment to humanity.

“Thank you for introducing me to quiche, Edwin,” joked Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, saying Cameron was the only justice to have invited him to his chambers for lunch.

He called Cameron a “brave and bold” man for publicly disclosing he was HIV positive while stigma abounded. Cameron further tackled the topic in his celebrated book Witness to AIDS.

“When HIV and AIDS was or attracted stigma, he stood and declared openly, I’m HIV positive. He knew the attitude of South Africans at the time,” said Mogoeng.

“His love for the multitudes of South Africans and many across Africa and beyond could not allow him to shut up,” Mogoeng continued.

The chief justice said Cameron, 66, was “the epitome of non-racialism” and was almost always calm, even while the court was tackling difficult issues.

Professor David Bilchitz said Cameron’s public stance as a gay, HIV-positive man had inspired him in his public life. He cited the play Angels in America: “We won’t die secret deaths any more. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.”

In a testimonial sent by British lawyer Timothy Dutton SC, he recalled Cameron’s “massive capacity for hard work”. Dutton said Cameron had completed his law studies at Oxford in five rather than nine terms and had a supreme intellect, heroism and courage.

“By fixing your eyes on each one of us, you make us feel that there is no other person in your life that matters more. This is the quality of stardust,” said Dutton.

Jeremy Gauntlett SC recalled Cameron’s time working as an advocate on the Bar in the late 1980s and early 1990s, calling him a “gifted intellectual troublemaker”.

Gauntlett said Cameron brought to the court an “Olympian bearing, sense of engagement but detachment. He has brought to bear the remarkable gifts of lucid thinking and exactitude of expression”.

Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said Cameron was a role model as a citizen and a jurist and was likely to be called upon to serve in some form as a retired judge. He said the justice had fought the rights of vulnerable groups and was part of the independent judiciary which prevented mass looting and the country potentially becoming a failed state.

When Cameron finally spoke to the packed courtroom, standing room only, he said the court faced enormous pressures during his tenure and is likely to face greater pressures in the future.

“After almost 11 years here, what strikes me as most enduring about this court is its commitment to the future, to our country’s future, to a future for its young people,” he said, acknowledging the babies in the audience.

“As public values have been sometimes dimmed in the grim tissue of lies, deception and double dealing through which our country has had to survive in the preceding decade, this court has continued to look forward and to look ahead.”

Cameron said the justices had striven to understand the depth and complexity of the issues brought to court, which sometimes saw justices divided but always saw them grounded in their commitment to the Constitution.

“In this I do not think, chief justice, that any single one of us feels the slightest self-satisfaction, complacency or self-congratulation, not at all. There’s still too much to be done and the perils facing our country and the rule of law remain too large,” said Cameron.

“The fight for our constitutional values is now more urgent than ever and future-directed and future-regarded commitment is more vital than ever,” he concluded. DM