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CIVICUS discusses the challenges posed by Paraguay’s ‘anti-NGO legislation’ with Hugo González, government director of the Paraguayan Community of LGBTQ+ Artists (REPAR+), a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes the rights of LGBTQI+ folks, which has joined the constitutional problem towards this legislation.
Thirty-eight CSOs have appealed to the Supreme Courtroom of Paraguay to dam Legislation 7363, which regulates CSOs. Offered as a transparency measure, the legislation topics organisations to a registration and monitoring regime that civil society considers disproportionate. Its implementation additional restricts Paraguay’s constrained civic house, with teams engaged on gender equality and sexual range beneath explicit stress.
What are the issues with Legislation 7363?
The legislation was enacted in November 2024, and its rules got here into pressure in October 2025. It applies to CSOs that obtain or handle non-public or public funds from nationwide or worldwide sources and use these funds to affect public coverage or state actions. The regulatory decree defines affect broadly, together with reviews, press releases and different types of public expression.
The legislation establishes a public register administered by the Ministry of Economic system and Finance and requires stability sheets, minutes, supporting paperwork and annual reviews on programmes, beneficiaries, professionals, employees and affiliated entities. It additionally prohibits reference to donor confidentiality to avoid these controls and gives for sanctions starting from a proper warning to suspension and deregistration.
Civil society doesn’t oppose transparency. We had been already complying with civil, labour, tax and anti-money laundering obligations, so this legislation was pointless. We name it the ‘massive stick legislation’ as a result of it duplicates controls, makes use of broad definitions and turns public advocacy right into a danger issue that triggers extraordinary scrutiny for punitive functions.
In what political context was the legislation handed?
The invoice was handed due to the bulk held by the ruling Colorado Social gathering. The method moved ahead towards a backdrop of stigmatisation of CSOs, human rights activists and journalists, and coincided with the work of a congressional committee that framed CSO funding inside a story centred on cash laundering.
The legislation additionally mirrored the convergence between components of the ruling coalition and conservative non secular networks. Amongst its important proponents had been legislators comparable to Gustavo Leite and Lizarella Valiente, who’ve additionally participated in actions and initiatives linked to evangelical organisations. Whereas this doesn’t show that these organisations drafted or funded the legislation, it does spotlight an asymmetry in entry and scrutiny between teams that affect public coverage.
The legislation treats totally different teams that affect the identical insurance policies very in a different way. It imposes in depth controls on CSOs however expressly exempts church buildings and spiritual teams.
What influence is the brand new legislation having?
The influence started even earlier than the primary sanctions had been imposed. Ever for the reason that Ministry of Economic system and Finance launched the registration portal, CSOs have needed to dedicate time, cash and employees to complying with the brand new accounting, administrative and authorized necessities. For small organisations or these run by volunteers, which means a big proportion of their assets is now not being channelled into actions, help, analysis or help providers.
Uncertainty can also be an element. Though sanctions should not but being utilized on a big scale, the legislation is having a deterrent impact. Donors, organisations and supporters concern the implications of getting concerned or advocating for causes.
The duty to offer detailed data on beneficiaries and supporters poses privateness dangers, notably in small communities and amongst susceptible teams. The protection of those folks is determined by who has entry to the data, for what objective and with what efficient safeguards.
What obstacles do LGBTQI+ organisations face, and the way does the brand new legislation exacerbate them?
In Paraguay, gender and variety organisations function in a context of structural discrimination, characterised by hate speech, exclusion from training and the labour market, obstacles to accessing healthcare and difficulties in reporting violence. Added to that is the shortage of a complete anti-discrimination legislation, authorized recognition for same-sex {couples} and accessible administrative procedures for the popularity of gender id. All this leaves LGBTQI+ folks in a very susceptible state of affairs.
Legislation 7363 exacerbates these difficulties, because it imposes broad and unclear necessities on CSOs that defend these rights. REPAR+’s inventive actions might be thought to be advocacy, tradition and help suddenly. The vagueness of the legislation, mixed with discretionary powers and the specter of suspension, makes it unimaginable to foretell how these actions shall be labeled, and will stifle vital voices earlier than any sanction is imposed.
How has civil society mobilised to problem the legislation on the Supreme Courtroom?
The response has mixed dialogue, worldwide appeals, litigation and technical evaluation. Since December, CSOs engaged on group improvement, tradition, the atmosphere and human rights, in addition to rural communities, have filed constitutional challenges towards the legislation and its implementing decree. REPAR+ has joined the trouble as a result of we imagine freedoms of affiliation and expression are important for organisations that help LGBTQI+ folks, denounce discrimination and interact in public coverage.
We hope that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Courtroom will look at these challenges independently and urgently, within the mild of the Structure, the American Conference on Human Rights and the Worldwide Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A beneficial ruling would immediately shield the organisations bringing the challenges and set up an vital precedent. We don’t search to be exempt from accountability. We search to forestall a regulatory course of from turning into a type of political surveillance, exposing susceptible folks or serving as punishment for dissent.
What motion is required in and out of doors Paraguay to reverse these restrictions?
Inside Paraguay, the court docket should rule urgently and forestall irreparable hurt whereas it considers the deserves of the case. Nonetheless, an enduring answer requires Congress and the chief to repeal or comprehensively modify the legislation, via a pluralistic session course of. Any regulation needs to be exact, keep away from duplicate registrations and shield beneficiaries, donors, victims and staff. Intrusive requests needs to be topic to unbiased scrutiny and sanctions needs to be restricted to what’s strictly essential and proportionate. These standards ought to apply equally to anybody who manages public funds or influences coverage, together with non secular organisations.
The worldwide group might proceed to observe the state of affairs on the United Nations, notably via the Human Rights Council Common Periodic Overview course of, and on the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights. It may well additionally take motion via embassies and cooperation companies. Donors ought to provide versatile help to cowl accounting, authorized, safety and technological prices, relatively than withdrawing out of concern of the brand new regime.
Paraguay additionally wants a complete anti-discrimination legislation, efficient recognition of gender id and safety for human rights defenders and journalists.
We’re not asking for exterior guardianship or privileges. We’re calling for democratic solidarity to protect an area the place folks can organise, query and suggest concepts. Transparency ought to strengthen democracy, not expose susceptible folks or flip criticism of these in energy right into a trigger for suspicion.
CIVICUS interviews a variety of civil society activists, specialists and leaders to assemble various views on civil society motion and present points for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and don’t essentially mirror these of CIVICUS. Publication doesn’t suggest endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they characterize.
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SEE ALSO
Paraguay: arbitrary detention of land rights defenders CIVICUS Monitor 24.Apr.2026
Reducing civil society’s lifeline: the worldwide unfold of overseas brokers legal guidelines CIVICUS Lens | report 19.Oct.2025
Paraguay: ‘The brand new legislation’s objective is to extend authorities management over civil society’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Marta Ferrara and Olga Caballero 25.Oct.2024
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