Page:NCGLE v Minister of Justice.djvu/22

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Ackermann J

as our equality jurisprudence continues to develop. In any event it is the cumulative effect of these factors that must be examined and in respect of which a determination must be made as to whether the discrimination is unfair.”[1] (Footnotes omitted).


The Impact of the Discrimination Resulting from the Criminalisation of Sodomy on the Members of the Group(s) Affected


[20]In what follows I rely heavily on an influential article written by Prof Edwin Cameron.[2] According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary “orientation” means “[a]


  1. Id at paras 50 and 51.
  2. Edwin Cameron “Sexual Orientation and the Constitution: A Test Case for Human Rights” (1993) 110 SALJ 450. The article is a revised version of an inaugural lecture delivered by the author on 27 October 1992 on the acceptance by him of an ad hominem professorship in law at the University of the Witwatersrand. Despite the fact that it was conceived some 18 months prior to the adoption of the interim Constitution, its depth and lucidity of analysis is just as instructive in the present era when sexual orientation has indeed achieved constitutional protection. I have followed Cameron’s use of the expressions “gay”, “lesbian” and “homosexual”.
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