THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS : VICTIMS' RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR PREVENTING INSTITUTIONAL REVITIMIZATION AND THE PARADOX OF THE PROMOTION OF IMPUNITY AFTER LAW 14.321/2022

Abstract

The article analyzes the procedural paradox arising in the context of combating domestic violence against women when the victim’s right to remain silent, understood as a legitimate instrument for preventing institutional revictimization, begins in practice to operate as a factor that weakens criminal prosecution and fosters impunity. Based on qualitative research of a bibliographic, normative, and jurisprudential nature, the study examines the evolution of the legal protection of women in Brazil, the evidentiary value of the victim’s testimony in crimes committed within the domestic sphere, and the psychological, social, economic, and institutional factors that influence withdrawal, abandonment, or refusal to testify. It is argued that, following Law No. 14,321/2022, the justice system came to recognize more strongly the need to avoid revictimizing practices, but without structuring, to the same extent, prior and interdisciplinary mechanisms of reception, qualified listening, emotional protection, and strengthening of the complainant’s participation. Within this gap, the hasty conclusion that there is insufficient evidence for conviction may transform a protective guarantee into an indirect vector of acquittals based on evidentiary insufficiency. In response to this problem, the article proposes a Protocol for Assistance and Strengthening of Victim Participation (PAFPV), aimed at ensuring humane assistance, interinstitutional integration, and concrete conditions so that the exercise of silence does not result from state abandonment, fear, or unaddressed vulnerability. It is concluded that the recognition of evidentiary insufficiency, in such cases, should not dispense with prior verification of adequate institutional support measures for the victim; otherwise, the duty of protection risks being replaced by a merely formal neutrality, incapable of preventing the reproduction of impunity.