Vindicating Science and Human Rights through the Courts

South African Security forces Union and Others v. Surgeon General and Others. (1) This case challenged the South African National Defence Force’s health classification policy, which for years has prevented recruits and soldiers with HIV from recruitment, external deployment or promotion within the SANDF regardless of their actual state of health or the area of work for which they would be responsible. Along with the Union, the individual applicants in the case were a potential recruit who had applied to join the Air Force band as a trumpeter, a soldier who conducts combat readiness preparation for deploying troops, and an administrative personnel clerk. Respectively, these three applicants had been denied recruitment, foreign deployment and promotion in the SANDF solely on the basis of their HIV status.

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