CAUSAL LINK BETWEEN SOCIALLY DANGEROUS ACTS AND SOCIALLY DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRIME UNDER ARTICLE 166 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF UKRAINE

Introduction. In today's conditions of society development, it is necessary to ensure the protection of a set of rights of socially vulnerable groups of the population — children and persons with limited capacity (incapacity). In particular, their right to care. Therefore, Art. 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides for criminal liability for malicious failure to fulfill the obligations to care for a child or a person under guardianship or custody. This crime is considered complete from the moment of the occurrence of grave consequences. Therefore, the causal link between the act and the consequences is a mandatory feature of its objective side. The obligation to establish it has been repeatedly mentioned in the legal positions of the courts of cassation and in the doctrine of criminal law. However, this is often problematic for law enforcement officers, as evidenced by the results of the analysis of case law on the application of Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The foregoing indicates the need to pay attention to this topic. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to establish the degree of objective dependency of socially dangerous consequences on the failure to fulfill care obligations for a child or a person under guardianship or care and to consider the development of the causal link as a mandatory feature of the objective side of the crime stipulated in Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Materials and Methods. The research materials are: 1) works of national scholars conducting theoretical and practical research on the crime under Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; 2) case law of the High Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases, the Supreme Court of Ukraine and the courts of first instance on the application of Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The following scientific methods were used in the study: dialectical (analyzing phenomena in their development and interconnection, unity and contradictions); system-structural (analyzing the causal link as a mandatory feature of the objective side of this crime); concrete-sociological (observation, document study, description, etc.); and statistical (analyzing data from state institutions and summarizing court practice on the application of Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine); logical generalization of results (formulating conclusions). Results. The scientific article establishes that the causal link between socially dangerous acts and socially dangerous consequences is indirect. It is found that this causal link develops in a system of interacting conditions that lead to the consequence, with the failure to fulfill care obligations being the necessary (determinative) condition. The process of developing this causal link is described. It is revealed that the failure to fulfill care obligations causes consequences through interaction with other (additional) conditions. Prospects. Further research is planned to focus on other mandatory features of the objective side of the crime stipulated in Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.