UK pensioner resident abroad - not receiving automatic retirement pension uplift given to UK residents - no breach of European Convention on Human Rights - claimants on jobseeker's allowance and income support - claimants under 25 paid less than those over 25 - no breach of convention

R (Carson) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions; R (Reynolds) v Same: CA (Lords Justice Simon Brown, Laws and Rix): 17 June 2003

The first claimant, a UK pensioner living in South Africa, had unsuccessfully applied for judicial review of a decision that because she had not received an increase in the basic state retirement pension of 5 paid since 9 April 2001, or the percentage increase in her additional pension and her graduated pension paid since then, she had been discriminated against contrary to article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and article 1 of the First Protocol because she had been treated less favourably than a UK pensioner, here or abroad, who received the inflation uplift.

She appealed.

The second claimant had unsuccessfully applied for judicial review of the decision that her contributions-based jobseeker's allowance and later income support be paid at 41.35 per week because she was in the 18-24 age range, and as such was discriminated against in relation to benefit contrary to article 14 read with article 1 of the First Protocol, or article 8 read with article 14, because she had been less favourably treated than benefit claimants who were over 25.

She appealed.

Richard Drabble QC, Helen Mountfield and Murray Hunt (instructed by Thomas Eggar) for Mrs Carson; John Howell QC and Jason Coppel (instructed by the Solicitor, Department for Work and Pensions) for the secretary of state; Manjit Gill QC and Ramby de Mello (instructed by JM Wilson, Birmingham) for Ms Reynolds; John Howell QC and James Eadie (instructed by the Solicitor, Department for Work and Pensions) for the secretary of state.

Held, dismissing both appeals, that the exclusion of pensioners resident in other jurisdictions from the UK's annual uprating of the state retirement pensions was not in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights; that, similarly, there was no breach of the convention in the payment of jobseeker's allowance to a person under 25 at a different rate from payment to a person over 25 since there was a reasonable and objective justification for the differential payments.