Campaigners against the legalisation of assisted suicide have strongly criticised the removal of a High Court safeguard from Kim Leadbeater’s draft laws.
Opponents say the change makes a mockery of her claim that her assisted suicide bill would introduce the strongest safeguards on the earth.
The bill originally required assisted suicide applications to be signed off by the High Court, but this has been replaced with approval by an authority panel including a lawyer, psychiatrist and social employee.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, a campaign group that opposes euthanasia, said that ditching the High Court safeguard was “a deeply worrying move that puts a sword to the lie that changing the law will be done safely”.
“Approval by the High Court was sold to members of the general public and our elected representatives in Parliament as the important thing safeguard that might make this laws the ‘safest on the earth’, but due to fears that the court system wouldn’t find a way to manage, this essential measure is being ditched,” he said.
“Instead, it’s being proposed that we have now a secretive panel, of people that support so-called assisted dying making the life-or-death decision.
“There could be no transparency and astonishingly, unlike the judicial process its replacing, no requirement to listen to arguments from an applicant’s family or doctor in the event that they have concerns. This is a disgrace that if approved will put the lives of vulnerable people in danger.”
A spokesman for Christian advocacy group CARE said that scrutiny of the bill up to now had been “flawed” and that MPs should as a substitute work to bolster suicide prevention and palliative care.
“The fluid nature of the talk about ‘safeguards’ on this Bill is a priority in itself. Evidence from other countries shows that ‘safeguards’ are subject to vary,” he said.
“In places where assisted death is permitted, legal requirements have been relaxed or disbursed with altogether as campaigners pursue easier access by more groups of individuals. There can also be evidence of adjusting practice on the bottom.
“The direction of travel is all the time liberalisation, and we might expect a UK law to develop in this manner. Parliament doesn’t have to take this risk.”
Criticism has come from inside Leadbeater’s own party, with Labour MP Diane Abbott tweeting: “Safeguards on the Assisted Dying Bill are collapsing. Rushed, badly thought out laws. Needs to be voted down.”
Conservative MP Danny Kruger told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme of his concerns.
“Why, if that is the plan, why is not this the plan that was put to MPs when the entire House of Commons voted it through?” he said.
“At that time, it was made very strongly that the principal safeguard for the bill, where people could trust that it was going to be secure for vulnerable people, was that there could be a High Court judge approving the appliance. That’s now been removed.
“This recent system … doesn’t involve a judge, it involves a panel of individuals, all of whom presumably are committed to the principle of assisted dying, not an impartial figure just like the judge.”
