Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning: Reconsidering Human Judgment and Accountability in the Digital Age

Résumé

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI and large language models, is transforming legal research, analysis, drafting, and decision-making. AI systems increasingly perform tasks traditionally associated with lawyers and other legal professionals, raising fundamental questions concerning human judgment and accountability within legal institutions. This article examines whether AI-assisted legal reasoning can be reconciled with the rule of law, procedural fairness, and human responsibility. The article argues that legal reasoning extends beyond the retrieval or probabilistic generation of legal information. It involves interpreting authoritative sources, evaluating facts, resolving competing principles, exercising judgment, and providing reasons capable of scrutiny and challenge. AI therefore presents significant risks, including hallucinated authorities, algorithmic bias, opacity, automation bias, and excessive reliance on machine-generated outputs. Through a comparative examination of emerging regulatory and professional approaches in the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, and India, the article assesses existing mechanisms for accountability in AI-assisted legal work. It proposes a framework centred on meaningful human oversight, independent verification, transparency, traceability, reason-giving, and contestability. The article concludes that AI should function as an assistive technological instrument that augments legal reasoning without displacing human judgment and responsibility necessary for legitimate and accountable legal decision-making.