Overview:

• A small degree of state privilege is bestowed to the Catholic Church due to its “cultural dominance” yet it must also comply with state regulations.

• Recognition and registration are amalgamated rather than ideally differentiated; a focus is placed on legal registration with there existing few to no provisions for existential recognition.

• Informational requirements, though basic, are intrusive by their nature, particularly as they are likely to be used against the group during the registration procedure.

• The rule of mandatory registration violates the Bielefeldt provision.

Positive elements:

• Freedom of religion or belief is generally thought not universally upheld by the government.

• Horizontal recognition is in effect.

Recommendations:

• Revoke the rule of mandatory registration, reregistration and annualisation as restriction tools.

• Establish a revitalised recognition system that has the capacity to bestow both existential recognition and legal registration to all belief systems and their derivatives sufficiently and appropriately and at multiple levels of operation and activity.

• To become dynamic, the Paraguayan government would need to establish a recognition agency that would manage the newly established recognition system independently from government.