Paraguay has been an independent country since 1811, but it has only been a democracy for twenty four years. Because of the newer democracy, there is still much instability and need for reform. While the people have rights and laws against discrimination, rights are not well protected and discrimination happens often. The structure of the government has potential to be legitimate, but it is not fully there yet.
The primary source, as well as the greatest strength of legitimacy in Paraguay is through legal actions. Free elections are held for the people to vote for the president and legislative members (10). The people also have freedom of speech (11). They used that freedom this past
August, when many Paraguayans marched in the country’s capital …show more content…
For example, public schools do not get any attention-”roofs fall from public schools and schools revealed poor management.” (2). Paraguay is a poor country, but it gets quite a bit of income from the illegal smuggling- “an Asuncion think-tank estimates the informal economy equals thirty nine percent of official gross domestic product.” (3).
The criminal justice and court system is corrupt. A prominent experience from 2012 is still causing problems today. Police officers were sent to Curuguaty to drive farmers out of the land they were stage occupying. It turned into a massacre where eleven campesinos (small farmers) and six police were killed (4). As it has turned out, the court has not run any autopsies

Scoresby 2 or tests to see who is at fault for all the deaths, unfairly giving the campesinos a sentence of one hundred and twenty years (5).
Though Paraguay is a secular country (6), the government is heavily represented by those of the Roman-Catholic church. Recently, a ten year old girl was raped by her step-father and became pregnant. The government would not allow her to have an abortion “unless