Supreme Court could use secret evidence in landmark case The move has split the Coalition with critics warning it will damage the basic principle of open justice. But ahead of any proposed new laws, the country's most senior judges may rely on secret evidence for a ruling in the case of Bank Mellat. The matter is considered so significant, nine of the court's 12 justices will now hear it, headed by the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger. The Treasury imposed sanctions on Bank Mellat in 2009 that stopped anyone in the UK financial sector from working with it, effectively shutting the bank out of the UK. The Government accuses the bank of providing financial services to companies engaged in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme and insists the sanctions are designed to hamper such programmes. In 2010, lawyers for the bank won a human rights ruling in the High Court that its right to fair hearing would be breached if it could not see sufficient information on the allegations against it. That decision was overturned in the Court of Appeal the following year and the case has now moved to the Supreme Court. It was initially due to be heard last year but was postponed after Treasury solicitors asked the court to consider secret materials. Justices must first decide whether they can following the entirely separate Supreme Court ruling concerning the Guantánamo detainees, including Binyam Mohamed and Bisher Al-Rawi, who the case was named after. A spokesman for the court insisted any deliberations about the use of the material will be heard in open court. He said: "As was the practice in the House of Lords and in common with all other courts, the justices of the Supreme Court have always been reluctant to consider closed material given the important principle of open justice." But he added: "Should the need ever arise, the Supreme Court has procedures in place to handle closed material." However, the civil rights group Liberty, which has intervened in the case, has warned the only way the court could consider closed material would be by itself going in to private session. Sarosh Zaiwalla, of London law firm Zaiwalla & Co representing Bank Mellat, said: "Sanctions are an important way to enforce international law in a peaceful manner, but they must be subject to the rule of law and require evidence" Lord Dyson, in the Al-Rawi case, stated that the open justice principle is not a mere procedural rule but a fundamental common law principle. It is vital for public confidence in the law that justice is not only done but is seen to be done.