This amendment removes the section that protects somebody from prosecution who kills someone who does not meet the criteria. Certainly a major goal of this process has been to protect the vulnerable, those who do not consent, those who do not meet the criteria. Obviously it's very important that the legislation is structured to ensure that the only lives taken are of those who meet the criteria prescribed by the legislation, whatever those criteria are. But this clause says that somebody who takes the life of a person who does not meet the criteria, perhaps doesn't consent, perhaps isn't able to consent, perhaps is not ill, would still escape prosecution if this person taking the life had a reasonable but mistaken belief that the criteria were met.
I think it is imperative that we put the obligation on the person who's doing this to ensure that the criteria are met, and we make them responsible for killing a person who does not meet the criteria, because if we don't do that, I think we render the criteria largely meaningless and we make effective prosecution of those who take life in this context outside of the criteria virtually impossible.
What sense is the criteria if all a person has to do to avoid prosecution is demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that they had a reasonable but mistaken belief? Of course, the implication of this is that a person might be prosecuted who tried to act reasonably but was mistaken. But we have categories of crime like manslaughter where if you take a person's life, if you do something extremely serious, and you didn't take the necessary precautions to ensure that you weren't going to do that, then you are responsible. This is serious. This is necessary for protecting the vulnerable to make sure the people who don't consent don't lose their lives in this.