After eight years, Lebanon is finally recruiting new judges

Lebanon’s judiciary has gone eight years without a new entrance competition for trainee judges, even as retirements, resignations and years of financial crisis have left courts struggling with shortages. That long pause finally ended on September 5, when around 1,200 candidates sat for the entrance examination to the Institute of Judicial Studies at the Lebanese University in Hadath. Justice Minister Adel Nassar said around 45 judges are currently needed, with candidates to be selected based on knowledge, competence, transparency and objective criteria.

The return of recruitment is therefore more than a routine exam. It comes after years in which the judiciary continued to lose judges without regularly bringing in new ones, raising questions about how much the shortage has affected the functioning of the courts and whether the new intake will be enough to ease the pressure.

Why did recruitment stop for eight years?

The last entrance competition for trainee judges was held in 2018. That class eventually produced 34 new judges, who completed their training and took their legal oath in November 2022.

The financial crisis was one of the main reasons recruitment stalled. Maître Aimée El Helou told The Beiruter that organizing a judicial competition requires funding for the committees that prepare and supervise the exams and conduct oral interviews. “There wasn’t an adequate budget because all the committees that had to be formed in order to hold a judicial competition needed funding,” she said.

El Helou described the collapse in judges’ salaries as one of the most important factors. “A lawyer can make in one or two cases what a judge earns after working the whole month,” she said, adding that several judges resigned while others left Lebanon. By August 2022, more than 350 of Lebanon’s 560 judges had suspended their services over deteriorating pay and conditions. Later that year, the number was reported to have risen above 450.

There were institutional obstacles as well. El Helou said the Higher Judicial Council did not have all of its members in place. At the same time, there were discussions over whether Lebanon should continue with the traditional three-year training program or introduce a shorter route for experienced lawyers and legal academics. That alternative was discussed but never implemented.

Some movement finally began in 2025, when the Higher Judicial Council completed a major round of appointments and transfers involving more than 500 judges. But those measures only redistributed judges already in the system. The September 2026 entrance exam is therefore different: it restarts the recruitment pipeline itself. Justice Minister Adel Nassar has also said that the Judicial Studies Institute is being renovated, its programs have been updated in cooperation with France’s judicial training institute, and Lebanese instructors have received training in France.

What did eight years without new judges do to the courts?

The 2025 judicial appointments and transfers covered 524 judges, but they did not solve the underlying shortage. Lebanon’s National Human Rights Commission said in its 2025 annual report that courts continued to face substantial case backlogs, repeated adjournments and delays because of excessive workloads and insufficient human and logistical resources. Some cases were also stalled because judicial panels were incomplete or the required quorum could not be reached.

Maître Aimée El Helou told The Beiruter that the shortage placed much heavier workloads on judges. “Every judge, instead of being assigned to one court, started being assigned to three courts, or three positions,” she said. “You might find that a juvenile judge is also assigned, for example, as a single criminal judge.” According to El Helou, this was one of the reasons case files accumulated and decisions were delayed.

The impact of vacancies could also be seen at the Judicial Council, Lebanon’s highest court for serious crimes involving state security. Its hearings were suspended after Judge Jamal Hajjar, one of its permanent members, was appointed acting public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, while other seats had already been left vacant by retirements. Without enough judges to complete the bench, the Council could not continue hearing the cases before it.

Are 45 new judges enough?

Not immediately. Candidates who pass the competition will first become trainee judges and spend three years at the Institute of Judicial Studies, combining theoretical study with practical training before becoming tenured judges.

Justice Minister Adel Nassar said the current need is around 45 new judges. But Maître Aimée El Helou told The Beiruter that, in her opinion, the number would still leave a shortage. “If every year or every year and a half they had held a competition and taken around 30 judges, the total would be much greater than 45,” she said. “Forty-five judges, compared with an interruption of eight years, is a much smaller number.”

Recruitment alone will also not fix the courts. More judges can help replace retirees and divide workloads, but faster justice also depends on court staff, functioning buildings, better salaries, digital systems and greater judicial independence. Nassar has linked the new recruitment round to efforts to improve court productivity and advance legislation on the independence of the ordinary and administrative judiciary.

The September 5 exam therefore restarts a pipeline that had been frozen for years, but its impact will take time. The larger question is whether recruitment now becomes regular again, rather than another one-off intake after a long gap.