Tripoli Bar Association Launches AI and Justice Future Conference

The Tripoli Bar Association officially opened the conference titled "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Justice," sponsored by Justice Minister Adel Nassar, who attended the event. The conference was also under the patronage of the Minister of Technology and Artificial Intelligence and Minister of Displaced Persons, Kamal Shehadeh, represented by Nadine Shawy. Attendees included MPs Tony Frangieh and Ahmad Al-Kheir, Tripoli Bar Association President Marwan Daher, Beirut Bar Association President Imad Mortinos represented by the association’s Secretary-General Nadim Hamadeh, along with a large gathering of judicial, security, legal figures, and lawyers.

Following the national anthem and a welcome by Firas Al-Sheikh, Marwan Daher delivered a speech. He stated, "We are at a pivotal moment that calls for rethinking the future of justice, as artificial intelligence has become a reality. This deep transformation is knocking on the doors of law and confronting justice with significant challenges. While history has seen changes, today’s transformation is deeper and touches the very essence of justice itself. Artificial intelligence becomes dangerous when used without controls and when entrusted with people's resources without oversight."

After Firas Hajar’s operational presentation on artificial intelligence and justice, the minister’s representative, Nadine Shawy, spoke. She highlighted that "Artificial intelligence has entered various fields of life and is now present in the economy, administration, tourism, education, and judiciary. This reality compels us to reconsider many applied legal concepts and to develop legislative and regulatory frameworks to keep pace with this evolution while simultaneously preserving rights and safeguarding justice."

She added, "Regardless of technology’s capabilities, the crucial question remains: how do we ensure that humans remain at the core of justice? Artificial intelligence can conduct advanced legal research, assist in drafting contracts, and prepare legal memoranda within seconds. However, the moral and legal decision-making depends on human sensibility and the pursuit of justice. Moreover, it cannot replace lawyers in defending rights and protecting freedoms. Today, we must be proactive in establishing legislation and policies that accompany this transformation, achieving a balance between encouraging innovation and protecting rights and freedoms. Artificial intelligence requires legal rules, capable institutions, and legislation that ensures transparency, accountability, and strengthens citizens’ trust. This is where the responsibility of lawyers arises."

In the closing remarks of the opening session, Justice Minister Adel Nassar addressed the attendees, stating: "The intelligence we discuss today is artificial, but justice remains a human nature. The challenge today is not in developing artificial intelligence but in keeping our legal intelligence humane."

He continued, "Artificial intelligence is not a threat to justice but a historic opportunity to develop it if properly guided and if appropriate legal and ethical frameworks are established. It no longer waits for us to be ready. It has entered law offices, universities, and administrations, and we must regulate its entry into courts. Hence, the question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will enter the legal world but how to ensure it becomes a force that strengthens justice rather than diminishes its values."

He observed, "Our choice today is not between acceptance and rejection. The choice is between regulating this transformation or having the judiciary disconnected from scientific and societal realities. Only judges and lawyers have the ability to balance between the text and reality, and between rights and facts. Therefore, regardless of technological advancements, the legal profession will remain a fundamental pillar for protecting rights and freedoms. Lawyers are not mere conveyors of texts or law implementers; they are the voice of justice, defenders of humans, and partners to the judiciary in establishing truth and the rule of law."

Addressing the audience, he said, "Our responsibility today is not limited to keeping pace with this development but to making the law precede it. Legislation should not follow the emergence of problems but anticipate them. This is the true role of legal professionals—not to resist change but to organize it. Based on this vision, the Ministry of Justice is preparing for this transformation legislatively by drafting a modern personal data protection law aligned with the best European and international standards. This represents a crucial step toward completing the legal framework regulating data use and protecting data owners’ rights. The importance of this law increases amid the rapid development of artificial intelligence and its accompanying new challenges, such as automated profiling, deepfake technologies, and other applications that may infringe on privacy, rights, and fundamental freedoms if not regulated within a clear and balanced legal framework."

He added, "History has witnessed milestones that changed the practice of law—from the invention of printing, through the industrial revolution, to the digital revolution. Today, we face a new revolution affecting thought, access to knowledge, and its production methods. Among these transformations, social media entered our world, adding comprehensive capacity for expression, giving everyone a voice, and facilitating the exchange of ideas and positions."

He continued, "Social media represents important progress but also creates significant challenges, as justice becomes subject to pressures threatening the integrity and soundness of court work. Judges must not operate under the pressure of social media. Umberto Eco said—and I will not translate fully because I partially disagree: 'Social networks have given the right to speak to legions of fools who previously only spoke at bars and caused no harm to the community. They were silenced immediately. Today, they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner.'"

He acknowledged, "While this statement is exaggerated and social media positively impacts freedom and the ability to express, and while we respect all opinions, it is also true that justice must not be continuously evaluated by social media as a pressure force before judgments are issued. Similarly, artificial intelligence opens wide horizons for the legal world. It can accelerate legal research, analyze vast amounts of jurisprudence, assist in contract preparation, improve court management, reduce time and costs, and facilitate citizens’ access to justice. These are not merely technical gains but a real opportunity to enhance judicial effectiveness and improve the quality of justice services. However, every technological revolution imposes new responsibilities. The questions posed by artificial intelligence are not only technical but also legal, ethical, and constitutional."

He questioned, "How do we protect the foundations of justice and its human dimension? How do we safeguard fair trial guarantees in a world increasingly reliant on data-driven decisions? How do we protect litigants’ privacy and individual rights?" He stated, "Justice has always rested on three pillars: reason, conscience, and the rule of law. Technology may provide speed, efficiency, and accuracy, but it cannot provide conscience. Justice is not a calculation; it is an act of judgment and responsibility. Therefore, artificial intelligence will never be a judge or a lawyer. It must remain a tool supporting judges and lawyers, never replacing them. Ultimately, we face a major challenge: we cannot resist progress, but we must not abandon the human dimension in resolving disputes between people."

He concluded, "Justice is based on a fundamental principle: human nature (la condition humaine). What distinguishes artificial intelligence from natural intelligence is the human dimension that combines intellectual quotient and emotional quotient. A judge remains a human being ruling among people, part of the community he judges. It is unacceptable to replace the human who judges among his peers with a strange entity devoid of human foundations to adjudicate between people. Otherwise, we remove the essential element of every act within the framework of justice: the judge’s conscience and human sensibility."

Following these remarks, the conference proceedings officially commenced.