"File:Abdelaziz Bennani (avocat).jpg" by Bcmounia is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .

Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) is pleased to announce that it will present the 2014 Defender of Democracy Awards to Ms. Navanethem Pillay (Navi) and Mr. Abdelaziz Bennani. 

The awards ceremony will be hosted by the Parliament of Morocco, on the evening of December 4th, 2014 in conjunction with PGA’s 8th Consultative Assembly of Parliamentarians for the International Criminal Court and the Rule of Law and the 36th Annual Forum of the Parliamentarians for Global Action. The Consultative Assembly will be held under the auspices of the Parliament of Morocco on 4-5 December organized by PGA Members from Morocco.

The Defender of Democracy Award is presented to individuals who, through their own commitment and active engagement, have made significant progress in strengthening democracy and democratic practices. Some past recipients include H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia; Ms. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Mr. Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2014.

This year, PGA is honoring Navanethem Pillay (Navi) for her distinguished work in human rights and democracy and her role as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. Ms. Pillay, a South African national, was the first woman to start a law practice in her home province of Natal in 1967. Over the next few years, she acted as a defense attorney for anti-apartheid activists and, later, served as acting judge for the South African High Court. As a member of the Women’s National Coalition, Ms. Pillay contributed to the inclusion in South Africa’s Constitution of an equality clause prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race, religion and sexual orientation. In 1992, she co-founded the international women's rights group Equality Now, an organization advocating for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls around the world. In 1995, Ms. Pillay was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to serve a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), where she served a total of eight years, the last four as President. She played a critical role in the ICTR's groundbreaking ruling which established that rape and sexual assault could constitute acts of genocide.  From 2003 to 2008 Ms. Pillay served on the first-ever panel of judges of the International Criminal Court. For her longstanding commitment to democracy, justice and the Rule of Law, PGA is pleased to recognize Ms. Pillay’s significant achievements by way of this award.

 Mr. Abdelaziz Bennani, became a member of the Casablanca Bar Association in 1965 and was a member of lawyers’ collectives defending accused persons in in political trials. Mr. Bennani was unlawfully arrested on two occasions and subsequently acquitted. He is Co-Founder of the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights (OMDH), pluralistic and independent organisation founded on December 10, 1988, after three successive bans. Mr. Bennani has served as Secretary General and Vice President of OMDH from December 1988 to May 1991, then as President from January 1992 to March 2000. During the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, he was elected as a member of the Liaison Committee of African NGOs. Mr. Bennani was Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights from December 1997 to January 2001 and he co-founded and was President of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network from 1997 to 2003, which aims at contributing to the promotion of Human Rights clauses in the Barcelona Declaration. From 2004 to 2005, Mr. Bennani was a member of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (Instance Equité et Réconciliation), a Moroccan human rights and truth commission created on January 7, 2004 by King Mohammed VI in order to reconcile victims of human rights abuses, such as torture and atrocities committed by Makhzen, the former Moroccan governing elite. PGA wishes to celebrate Mr. Bennani's remarkable career and his impressive contributions to create a safer and more equitable world. 

About PGA

Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) is the largest transnational network of Members of Parliaments from all regions of the world who, in their individual capacity, advocate for the rule of law, human security, gender equality and support the effective operation of the ICC and domestic jurisdictions to end impunity. The PGA network is assisted by a small secretariat that facilitates the cooperation and exchange by member MPs to achieve these goals and provides technical cooperation on legal advice and advocacy.

PGA receives core support from the Governments of Sweden and Denmark.

Past donors include the Governments of Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the Municipality of The Hague.