NAKED rambler Stephen Gough is challenging the right of Scotland's judges to be the master of their own courts.

The former Marine has been convicted of contempt by sheriffs three times for appearing nude in court in front of them.

But he claims his human rights have been violated because the contempt findings should have been decided by an independent magistrate.

Now, five of Scotland's top judges will spend seven days debating whether the country's contempt laws need to be rewritten.

Gough, 47, was up to his usual tricks before his Appeal Court hearing in Edinburgh yesterday.

He stripped off in a holding room and then refused to put on clothes to allow him to be taken into the dock.

Referring to the security guards who would have flanked Gough in court, Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, quipped: "It might frighten the Reliance men."

The judges finally lost patience and ruled it was Gough's own fault that he hadn't appeared in the dock and the appeal would go ahead without him.

Gough, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, is serving a six-month sentence after walking naked out of Edinburgh's Saughton prison at the end of another jail term.

But before that, he was found in contempt on three separate occasions by sheriffs in Edinburgh for appearing before them nude.

One sheriff jailed him for two months while the others refrained from imposing anything other than a contempt finding.

Before the appeal yesterday, his advocate Chris Shead told the five male judges: "He has a sincerely held view that going naked should not offend members of the community and that includes appearing in court.

"He does not regard it as contempt because he does not see it as an affront to the dignity of the court or a challenge to the authority of the court."

Lord Gill and Lords Osborne, Johnston, Philip and Penrose were referred to European human rights laws which insist that an individual has the right to be judged by an "independent and impartial" tribunal.

Gough's defence argued that although a sheriff or judge could bring a contempt charge, they were not the persons to decide the outcome.

They said the ruling should come from another lawman with no prior involvement in the case.

But the Crown claimed a judge who witnessed the alleged contempt was in the best position to determine the matter fairly and accurately.

They said a judge's impartiality was to be presumed until there was proof to the contrary.

The judges will give a written ruling at a later date.