Britain's highest court for the first time convened behind closed doors -- in a case involving an Iranian bank -- just one week after the Supreme Court decided it had the power to sit in secret. Justices had been told that some material in the case related to national security and couldn't be safely aired in public.
Bank Mellat, an Iranian bank, is trying to overturn a 2009 order by the U.K. Treasury barring it from operating in the country. That order, made under counterterrorism laws, shut the bank out of the British financial sector because it allegedly helped finance Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Critics argue that it is of international concern, that the court chose to hold the proceedings in private, and using a closed evidence procedure. Human rights group mark this occasion as a sad landmark in British history, in contrast to the courts reputation for respecting and enforcing the matter of law in it's highest regards.
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