Victim-Blaming and the Protection of Victims' Rights: A Legal and SocialAnalysis

Abstract

This article examines victim-blaming—attributing responsibility for a crime to its victim—on social media and its effect on victims' rights in criminal proceedings. Its relevance stems from the growing influence of digital platforms on public perceptions of high-profile criminal cases and the lack of systematic legal analysis of the phenomenon in Kazakhstani scholarship. The study is doctrinal and comparative legal research supplemented by an interdisciplinary literature review. It considers the psychological mechanisms of victim-blaming (the just-world hypothesis, rape myths, and the online disinhibition effect) and their link to secondary victimization. Victim-blaming is distinguished from evaluative opinions, the dissemination of defamatory information, insult, and defamation, and the relevant provisions of Kazakhstan's criminal, administrative, civil, and criminal procedure legislation are analyzed. Kazakhstani regulation is compared with Directive 2012/29/EU, the EU Digital Services Act, European Court of Human Rights case law, and the experience of Uzbekistan and other CIS states. Existing provisions are shown to cover only forms of victimblaming amounting to insult, defamation, or invasion of privacy and to require identifying a specific author, which hinders protection against mass anonymous blaming. Proposals are offered for improving criminal procedure legislation, the law on online platforms, and prosecutorial practice.