JUSTICE Michael Kirby, who will turn 63 on Monday, is an Australian judge with a reputation for activism.

To the consternation of some, he regularly speaks out on the two major issues close to his heart: gay law reform and public education.

In an unprecedented move last year, John Howard condemned Justice Kirby for intervening in the debate over public versus private school funding.

Justice Kirby is understood to be the longest-serving judge in Australia.

He had already held judicial office for 20 years when appointed to the High Court in 1996.

Rising from working-class origins to become one of the most senior judicial figures in Australia, the constant themes of his life’s work have been international human rights, the complexities of human sexual experience and the battle against intolerance.

In a recent book of essays Through the World’s Eyes, he recalled the days when it never occurred to anyone that homosexuals would also enjoy human rights.

Justice Kirby raised many eyebrows when in 1998 he “outed” himself by listing his partner of more than 30 years, Johan van Vloten, in Who’s Who in Australia.

He told The Australian he viewed his “self-outing” as a moral obligation.

“I think judges should be honest,” he said. “It’s not easy for everybody to do what I did because many people live in a world where there is still real prejudice and discrimination against them, when their jobs would be on the line, where they would suffer attacks in their family and in their social circumstances.

“But I feel that, in part, if I had remained silent I would have been conspiring in my own belittlement, and I was not willing to do that.”

Justice Kirby said one of the reasons he made his homosexuality public was for the benefit of young Australians either who may be homosexual or who needed to know that there were homosexual people in all walks of life.

He said: “We’ve reached a point in time, spurred on by science and by our knowledge of the variety of human sexuality, that we are not willing any more to go along with our own denigration.”