The Faculty of Law and Political Science at Beirut Arab University organized a symposium titled "Non-Residential Lease Law: Between the Text and the Application." Participants included the Head of the Civil Law Department and former Dean of the Faculty Professor Mohammad Hassan Kassem; the former Head of the Beirut Bar Association Mr. Nader Kaspar; the Lawyer and University Professor Abdo Ghosoub. The symposium was moderated by the Dean of the Faculty Professor Mohammad Abdel Rahim.
Initially, the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Abdel Rahim, spoke, explaining the objectives of this symposium, which comes at a time when Lebanon is witnessing deep economic and legislative transformations. These make it essential to reconsider how the relationship between the landlord and the tenant is regulated, especially in non-residential contracts, which are considered a fundamental pillar of commercial and economic activity in Lebanon.
Then, Professor Mohammad Hassan Kassem presented an overview of non-residential lease laws, reviewing legislative experiences in different countries. He pointed out that these experiences are no longer just an option but have become a standard for measuring the quality of legal education at the global level. The goal of this presentation may be either to benefit from positive experiences or to study and set aside negative experiences to avoid them.
Kassem continued, "Today, what we are presenting is a specific problem that faces us, both in Egypt and Lebanon, a problem that has single roots and similar negative dimensions and repercussions. Therefore, we will address the new Egyptian law, issued just three months ago, which caused a great uproar in the legal and social arena in Egypt, and we can benefit from its negative repercussions to study the situation in Lebanon."
For his part, Professor Abdo Ghosoub spoke about "one of the pivotal issues in Lebanese law, which is related to the Non-Residential Lease Law No. 160/2014, and the accompanying legislative overlap and successive amendments that have led to a state of instability in the legal and social environment alike. Since its issuance, this law has constituted a core subject of discussion among the various concerned parties, given the issues it has raised regarding the extent of its provisions' compatibility with constitutional principle s, especially concerning the protection of landlords' rights on one hand, and ensuring tenants' rights on the other."
Mr. Nader Kaspar also pointed to the "practical challenges in application and the balance between the rights of the landlord and the tenant." He considered that one of the fundamental and recognized principles in law formulation is that they should be clear and smooth, so that their articles harmonize with each other, far from ambiguity and complexity, and far from theories that make the implementation of some clauses impossible. The best example of this is the Residential Lease Law, issued in 2014 and with some of its articles amended on February 28 2017, which stipulated the formation of committees and funds that never saw the light, and invented mechanisms for appointing experts for the tenant and the landlord, with complex procedures that sometimes do not fit the reality, which led to the accumulation of problems between tenants and landlords.
The symposium concluded with a legal discussion on this topic between the attendees and the participants, stemming from our belief in reaching a balance between the rights of the landlord and the tenant to preserve the interest of society as a whole.
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