JAMES AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT 33 public interest (see paragraphs 47 to 49 above). According to the applicants, however, that is not sufficient to justify the distinction since the legislation takes no account of the personal circumstances, and notably the respective resources and needs, of the landlord and the tenant. This amounts in substance to the same complaint, albeit seen from another angle, as that which has been examined under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-1). In that context, the absence of a mechanism for inquiry into the details and individual merits of each proposed enfranchisement was not judged by the Court to have the consequence of rendering the operation of the legislation unacceptable (see paragraph 68 above). The Court sees no cause for arriving at a different conclusion in relation to Article 14 (art. 14) of the Convention: having regard to the margin of appreciation, the United Kingdom legislature did not transgress the principle of proportionality. In the Court’s opinion, therefore, the contested distinction drawn in the legislation is reasonably and objectively justified. 77. The second head of complaint must also be examined in the light of the Court’s finding under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-1) that the United Kingdom Parliament was entitled to consider the scheme embodied in the leasehold reform legislation as a reasonable and appropriate means for achieving the legitimate aim pursued. As the Commission pointed out, the distinctions drawn under the 1967 and 1974 Acts as to the availability of the right of enfranchisement and as to the levels of compensation (see paragraphs 21 and 23 above) have an objective basis in the rateable value of the property. The introduction of the rateable-value limits and the institution of two levels of compensation reflect Parliament’s desire to exclude from the benefits of enfranchisement the small percentage of better-off tenants not considered to be in need of economic protection and to provide more favourable terms of purchase for the vast majority of tenants, most likely to suffer hardship under the existing system (see paragraph 19 above). In view of the legitimate objectives being pursued in the public interest and having regard to the respondent State’s margin of appreciation, that policy of different treatment cannot be considered as unreasonable or as imposing a disproportionate burden on the applicants (see, mutatis mutandis, the Court’s similar conclusion in the context of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P11), paragraphs 52 and 56 above). The provisions in the legislation entailing progressively disadvantageous treatment for the landlord the lower the value of the property must be deemed to have a reasonable and objective justification and, consequently, are not discriminatory. C. Conclusion 78. The Court, like the Commission, therefore finds that the facts of the present case do not disclose any breach of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (art. 14+P1-1).