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	HaitiReviewed	LesothoReviewed	DR CongoReviewed
Legal family	Civil law	Civil law	Mixed Roman-Dutch and English common law	Civil law (Belgian tradition)
System of government	Unitary presidential republic	Unitary semi-presidential republic	Parliamentary constitutional monarchy	Unitary semi-presidential republic
Constitution	Constitution of the Republic of Paraguay	Constitution de la République d'Haïti	Constitution of Lesotho	Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In force since	1992	1987	1993	2006
Capital	Asunción	Port-au-Prince	Maseru	Kinshasa
Official languages	Spanish, Guaraní	French, Haitian Creole	Sesotho, English	French, Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo, Tshiluba
Currency	Paraguayan guaraní (PYG)	Haitian gourde (HTG)	Lesotho loti (LSL)	Congolese Franc (CDF)
Population	6,900,000	11,600,000	2,300,000	102,300,000
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.	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.	Unitary with ten districts, and a recognised hierarchy of chiefs exercising customary functions over land allocation and local dispute resolution. The Senate includes the twenty-two principal chiefs ex officio.	Semi-presidential: a directly elected President, a Prime Minister from the parliamentary majority, and a bicameral Parliament. The 2006 constitution split the former Supreme Court into three separate apex courts.
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.	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.	Bills pass three readings in the National Assembly, go to the Senate for review, and receive royal assent. The Senate can delay but not indefinitely block ordinary bills. Amendments to entrenched constitutional provisions require a two-thirds majority and, for the most protected clauses, a referendum.	Bills pass both chambers; persistent disagreement is resolved by a joint commission or a final National Assembly vote. The President promulgates within the constitutional period, and the Constitutional Court may be seised beforehand.
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.	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 split profession in form — advocates and attorneys are separately admitted under the Legal Practitioners Act — though in practice many practitioners hold both admissions; the Law Society of Lesotho regulates the attorneys' branch.	Avocats admitted to provincial bars under the national Ordre des avocats after a law degree and traineeship; défenseurs judiciaires assist in lower courts.

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.