THE LEGAL NATURE OF THE INSTITUTION OF CRIMINAL CONNIVANCE AND ITS FEATURES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY

The article examines the legal nature of criminal connivance and its features under conditions of digitalization. The study applies formal-logical, systemic-structural, and comparative legal methods. The empirical basis consists of criminal statistics on Articles 432, 433, and 434 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2020- 2025, as well as 50 judicial acts issued in 2021-2025. The study identifies the principal features of criminal connivance and establishes the key criteria for distinguishing it from complicity in crime. The analysis of judicial practice demonstrates the importance of the independent nature of concealment or failure to report a crime and the absence of prior criminal intent for proper legal qualification. The article also examines the transformation of criminal connivance under conditions of digitalization and the phenomenon of “virtual concealment of crimes”. The authors note that digital technologies complicate methods of crime concealment and conclude that further improvement of the institution of criminal connivance is an important direction for the development of criminal law.

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