The US Supreme Court was to hear arguments today in the case of a Guantanamo Bay detainee who was once Osama bin Laden's driver.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan is challenging the right of the US to try him by military commission. His lawyers want him to be tried in open court.
So far just ten Guantanamo Bay detainees have been brought before a panel of military officers known as a commission, which has been set up at the prison camp to try terrorism suspects held at the camp. No cases have been completed.
Lawyers in the US have challenged the constitutionality of the system, as it does not allow those charged to access some of the information being used against them.
The US military maintains the information is classified. Defence lawyers claim some of it was obtained by torture and would not stand up in a proper court.
The Hamdan case is viewed as a crucial test of the extent of the powers of the US President in wartime.
The Chief Justice, John Roberts, has already excused himself from the case because he ruled on it in a lower court.
It is unclear if Justice Antonin Scalia will step aside following his taped comments to an audience in Switzerland where he said it ‘was a crazy idea’ to try Guantanamo detainees in a civilian court.
