“Significantly” does not mandate immediate action.
Wilson et al. 20 [Lord Wilson (Ret. Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; current member of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.), Lady Hale, Lady Black, Lady Arden, and Lord Kitchin, 4-29-2020, "AM (Zimbabwe v Secretary of State for the Home Department," The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2018-0048-judgment.pdf, accessed 5-16-2024] // enjen
30. There is, so I am driven to conclude, validity in the criticism of the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of the new criterion. In its first sentence the reference by the Grand Chamber to “a significant reduction in life expectancy” is interpreted as “death within a short time”. But then, in the second sentence, the interpretation develops into the “imminence … of … death”; and, as is correctly pointed out, this is achieved by attributing the words “rapid … decline” to life expectancy when, as written, they apply only to “intense suffering”. The result is that in two sentences a significant reduction in life expectancy has become translated as the imminence of death. It is too much of a leap.