Carson relocated from the UK to South Africa in 1989 for work purposes, and continued paying her National Insurance Contributions (NICs) to ensure that on retirement she would be eligible for the full UK State Pension. She started drawing her UK state pension in September 2000, and then she realised that the amount she received would not be increased each year in line with her peers in the UK, and her pension was being "frozen" at the level at which she first started receiving it. Carson contended that she was being discriminated against with regard to deprivation of the annual inflationary increase to her UK State Pension because she had relocated to South Africa para 9. In addition, Carson contended that the failure of the UK Government to pay the annual inflationary increase to the UK State Pension in some countries but not others contravened the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and that she and many others were being discriminated against. She had found that the annual increase to the UK State Pension is payable in countries like the UK, the European Economic Area (EEA) and a number of disparate countries (the United States, for example), whilst not being payable in predominantly Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Carson claimed that under Article 1 her state pension, or alternatively its uprating, are "pecuniary rights", and therefore “possessions” within the meaning of Article 1 of the First Protocol and Article 14. In her original case, Justice Burnton had found in favour of the UK Government, citing that the judiciary should not override legislative UK government policy. This was upheld in her appeal to the Supreme Court.
