A thinktank led by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer (pictured) has called the law on assisted dying ‘inadequate and incoherent’. In a report published today, the Commission on Assisted Dying concludes that the law can be reformed without endangering protections for vulnerable people.

The report’s authors say it is possible to devise ‘a legal framework that would set out strictly defined circumstances in which terminally ill people could be assisted to die, while providing upfront safeguards to protect potentially vulnerable people’.

The commission, set up by thinktank Demos, found a ‘strong case’ for providing terminally ill people with the choice of assisted dying.

Necessary safeguards include requiring a patient to take ‘the final action that will end their own life’. The person must have a ‘settled intention to die’, and a death certificate must record the death as assisted, allowing a monitoring body to review cases to check they had complied with the law.

The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, published a new policy on assisted dying prosecutions in 2010. Opponents of reform argue that the Crown Prosecution Service policy goes far enough.

The Demos commission has no official status, but its membership will carry authority. Human rights law featured in evidence from both sides of the debate. Bindmans partner Saimo Chahal noted her client Tony Nicklinson’s argument in seeking a judicial review in 2010 that: ‘The current law disproportionately affects his right to personal autonomy as somebody who is too physically disabled to end his own life.’