court found that the three groups of pensioners were not in relevantly analogous positions and therefore the UK Government had the right to treat them differently. As far back as 1983, there was case law regarding a British pensioner who had emigrated to Australia who was denied an uprated pension. In addition, in Carson's House of Lords appeal, the government could have made the decision to not pay any UK state pension to "frozen" pensioners at all. When looking at all UK pensioners living overseas, the court could not find similarity between those pensioners who were resident in "frozen" countries and those who were resident in "unfrozen" countries. Social security contributions are used for other purposes besides paying the state pension – the National Health Service, for example. Even in those cases where there is proximity between "frozen" and "unfrozen" countries – Canada and the United States, for example – there are still differences in their social security provision, taxation, rates of inflation, interest and currency exchange rates to make it difficult to compare them.para 79 The court considers that these differences are "objective and reasonable" such that the UK Government can treat them differently, even though Age Concern in England made some powerful arguments as to why pensioners emigrate in the first place; ultimately, it is down to a matter of "personal choice". In addition, the UK Government claimed that it had made people aware that if they moved abroad, they may be moving to a "frozen" country where their UK state pension would not be uprated.para 80 The court decided that the government can decide which countries it wants to have reciprocal social security agreements with and which ones it does not, based on its own economic policies; therefore, in the court's opinion, the government has not violated Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.para 81 & 82 The court therefore decided by six votes to one that there had been no violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No 1. The dissenting opinion came from the President of the Court, Lech Garlicki. He thought that the difference in treatment of different cohorts of pensioners had no objective and reasonable justification.Dissenting Opinion of Judge Garlicki (President) Carson and Others v. The United Kingdom (2010) Cited as: [2010] ECHR 338, 51 EHRR 13, (2010) 51 EHRR