page_title: Carson and Others v. The United Kingdom (Application No. 42184/05) – Grand Chamber
section_title: Judgment
hierarchical_section_title: Carson and Others v. The United Kingdom (Application No. 42184/05) – Grand Chamber / Judgment
caption_attribution_description: English: This picture was taken before the first deliberation of the ECHR Grand Chamber - CARSON AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM - 42184/05 [2010] ECHR 338
context_page_description: Carson and Others v. The United Kingdom - 42184/05 [2010] ECHR 338was heard by the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg on 16th March 2010 on appeal from the European Court of Rights, Fourth Section before Jean-Paul Costa, Christos Rozakis, Nicolas Bratza, Peer Lorenzen, Françoise Tulkens, Josep Casadevall, Karel Jungwiert, Nina Vajić, Dean Spielmann, Renate Jaeger, Danutė Jočienė, Ineta Ziemele, Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, Päivi Hirvelä, Luis López Guerra, Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, Zdravka Kalaydjieva.
  Prior to the judgment being handed down, the judges had met privately on 2 September 2009 and 27 January 2010.
context_section_description: The same 13 applicants were appealing against the decision of the European Court of Human Rights - Fourth Section case. The Court summarized the circumstances of each of the  Applicants. paras. 10-24 The Court then reviewed the domestic proceedings that Carson had brought against the UK government, including Lord Carswell's dissenting opinion in the House of Lords Appeal. 
  The Applicants contended that their human rights had been violated under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - "Right to property" on its own and in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in conjunction with Article 14 (six applicants). The applicants also argued that they were being discriminated against because they were not receiving the annual increase to their UK state pension whilst others in a similar position to them were. paras. 25-36; para 52 
  The ECHR Fourth Section had previously decided that the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 taken alone was inadmissible. It also decided that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 taken in conjunction with Article 14 was admissible, and that Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 did not need to be examined. ᵖᵃʳᵃ ⁵³
  Under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the adding of "country of residence" in determining whether a UK pensioner should receive the annual increase to the UK state pension involved a "deprivation or interference" with the right to receiving the annual increase. In addition, the "possession" that UK pensioners have (in the UK state pension that they receive) was being eroded every year for which they did not receive the annual increase. The applicants argued that the ECHR Fourth section had only dealt with the first of the two complaints above. With respect to Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 had not been heard in UK court proceedings brought by Carson (alone), and therefore should not have been dismissed so lightly in the ECHR Fourth Section. paras 54,55
  The UK government argued that Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 for all the applicants (other than Carson) should be declared inadmissible since they had not brought proceedings before the UK courts. Since Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8 had not been tested in the UK courts, it should be declared inadmissible to this Court. ᵖᵃʳᵃ ⁵⁶
  The Court maintained that, under UK domestic law, under Article 1 Protocol No. 1, the applicants do not have a right to receive the annual uprating. This had been dismissed by the ECHR Fourth Section and cannot be appealed. The Court did not accept the UK government's objections to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 for the 12 applicants that had not filed domestic proceedings in the UK, and given that Carson had failed in that regard, there was no point in them litigating in the UK. The Court declared that Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8 should be inadmissible, because this had not been tested in the UK domestic courts. ᵖᵃʳᵃˢ ⁵⁷⁻⁶⁰
  The Court accepted that the UK government was better placed to understand "..what is in the public interest on social or economic grounds". The Court discounted the hardship that "freezing" the UK state pension had on the applicants, and thousands like them, since "any welfare system, to be workable, may have to use broad categorizations to distinguish between different groups in need". The question before the court was whether different groups of UK pensioners were in similar situations such that one group was discriminated against over the other. Article 14 by itself has no meaning in law, since it is an anti-discrimination law, without identifying who or what is being discriminated against, so, in order to be used the applicants case must be "within scope" of one or more of the underlying Article(s). The ECHR Fourth Section had found that the applicants case was within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Court agrees with this assessment, and there was no argument relating to this from the UK government. The ECHR Fourth Section had agreed that "country of residence" fell
caption: Annette Carson and other applicants and their legal team prior to first hearing before the ECHR Grand Chamber - 2 September 2009
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