In the Digital Age, the Impact of Victim Community-based Fault on the Sentencing Paradigm and the Examination of Legal Legitimacy_Vol. 2 No. 6 (JEL 2025)_Journal of Economics and Law (ISSN: 3005-5768)

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In the Digital Age, the Impact of Victim Community-based Fault on the Sentencing Paradigm and the Examination of Legal Legitimacy

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jel.202514608

Author(s)

Suen Ji

Affiliation(s)

Shaoguan University, Shaoguan, Guangdong, China

Abstract

With the rapid development of digital information technology, victims have broken through geographical restrictions to form a community with strong mobilization and public opinion pressure, which has profoundly impacted the traditional dual sentencing paradigm with judicial organs and defendants as the core. Although existing research has focused on this phenomenon, there is a lack of systematic examination of the underlying problems caused by community, such as structural imbalances, disturbances in judicial independence, and derivative harm. This paper argues that the core of the impact of victim community-based fault on sentencing is that it breaks the closed nature of the judicial field and exposes the shortcomings of the traditional sentencing paradigm in protecting judicial rationality, the rights and interests of victims, and avoiding community aggressive behavior. Therefore, it is urgent to build a new framework for the rights and responsibilities of "judicial organs, criminals, and victim communities". Judicial organs need to strengthen independent adjudication guarantees and effective communication mechanisms; Victims need to participate rationally with safe expression and institutional support; The participation of the public in public opinion should be guided by acceptance and legally restrained; Criminals should actively cooperate with judicial procedures and voluntarily admit their faults. The legal legitimacy of this reconstruction lies in balancing the right of victims to express their demands and the right to judicial fairness and independence, ultimately maintaining the rule of law order and substantive justice in the digital age, and providing suggestions for judicial practice to respond to new social pressures.

Keywords

Victim Community; The Fault of the Victim; Judicial Independence; Sentencing Paradigm

References

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