Opponents of a euthanasia/assisted suicide bill going through the UK parliament have strongly criticised the scrapping of a substantial safeguard that required a High Court judge to approve applications for the procedure.

While the proposed legislation would enable terminally ill adults in England and Wales, deemed to have less than six months to live, to be legally helped to kill themselves, some critics say the law would be expanded as it has in countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada to include categories other than the terminally ill.

The judicial oversight of applications in the original bill has now been scaled back to an ‘assisted dying commissioner’ and expert panel featuring a senior legal figure, a psychiatrist and a social worker.

A group of 26 Labour MPs opposed to the Bill expressed their anger yesterday at the removal of the safeguard, saying it, “breaks the promises made by the proponents of the Bill”.

“It fundamentally weakens the protections for the vulnerable and shows just how haphazard this whole process has become”, they added.

“It does not increase judicial safeguards but instead creates an unaccountable quango and to claim otherwise misrepresents what is being proposed”.