Comparison

Read two legal systems against each other

Because every portal follows the same fifteen-section outline, the comparison is genuinely like-for-like rather than a collage of whatever each government happens to publish.

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Comparison of selected legal systems
Attribute	ParaguayReviewed	Cape VerdeReviewed	HaitiReviewed
Legal family	Civil law	Civil law (Portuguese tradition)	Civil law
System of government	Unitary presidential republic	Unitary semi-presidential republic	Unitary semi-presidential republic
Constitution	Constitution of the Republic of Paraguay	Constitution of the Republic of Cabo Verde	Constitution de la République d'Haïti
In force since	1992	1992	1987
Capital	Asunción	Praia	Port-au-Prince
Official languages	Spanish, Guaraní	Portuguese, Cape Verdean Creole	French, Haitian Creole
Currency	Paraguayan guaraní (PYG)	Cape Verdean Escudo (CVE)	Haitian gourde (HTG)
Population	6,900,000	600,000	11,600,000
Division of powers	Unitary with seventeen departments and the capital district, each with an elected governor and departmental board holding administrative and limited fiscal competence. Legislative power is national.	Semi-presidential: a directly elected President with limited powers, a Prime Minister accountable to the National Assembly, and an independent judiciary with a separate Constitutional Court.	Unitary with constitutionally recognised decentralisation to 10 departments, arrondissements and communes, and to the communal section as the smallest territorial unit. In practice the elected local bodies are largely unfilled and replaced by appointed interim commissions.
How law is made	Bills may start in either chamber and must pass both. The President may object in whole or part; Congress overcomes an objection by absolute majority in both chambers. Constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of each chamber and ratification by referendum; wholesale reform requires a constituent assembly.	Bills are debated in general and in detail by the National Assembly, voted, then sent to the President for promulgation. The President may veto or request prior constitutional review by the Constitutional Court.	Under the 1987 Constitution bills pass both chambers and are promulgated by the President, who may return a text once for reconsideration. With Parliament not sitting, measures have been issued as executive decrees since 2020 — a practice widely criticised as lacking constitutional foundation, and a key reason to check the current status of any recent instrument before relying on it.
Legal profession	A law degree and registration of the title with the Supreme Court, which maintains the roll and exercises discipline. Bar membership is voluntary. Because both Spanish and Guaraní are official, courts must provide interpretation, and practitioners outside Asunción are commonly bilingual.	Advogados admitted through the Ordem dos Advogados after a law degree and traineeship; notaries and registrars form separate careers on the Portuguese model.	Advocates are admitted to one of the departmental bars (Ordre des avocats), most prominently the Port-au-Prince bar, after a law degree and a period of pupillage. Notaries hold a separate public office with exclusive competence over authentic acts including land transfers, which matters greatly given widespread informality in land title.

A comparison table flattens nuance by design. Where a difference matters to a decision you are making, open both portals and read the section in full — the constitutional detail behind a one-line summary is often the part that governs the outcome.