MONTREAL -- Quebec Premier Francois Legault said on Friday that the province would look at ways to expand medically assisted death laws to possibly include prior consent--which would allow people with degenerative diseases to decide their plans to die in advance.

"We're in favor of increasing medical aid in dying," Legault told reporters, according to the Journal de Montreal. "We're going to do it properly, as was done in the past. But, yes, I feel that in the population, people want to increase it."

Also on Friday, a group of experts presented its 14 recommendations to Quebec Health Minister Danielle McCann to expand the province’s medically-assisted dying law.

“This document is an excellent place to start analyzing the larger picture of medically-assisted death,” said McCann. “We have benefited from the expertise of people working in many different fields.”

The group, including researchers and experts working in medicine, psychology, social work and more, evaluated the law over a period of 18 months, from December 2017 to June 2019.

Their 14 recommendations include allowing someone who has been diagnosed with a grave illness to sign their demand for medically-assisted dying while they are still of sound mind, permitting someone to appoint a trusted person to make sure their wishes are respected and ensuring the government puts proper palliative services in place across Quebec.

“It's one person who is designated and the person is there just to translate the will. To say, 'OK, there is a document, that person wants that and I just want you, doctor, to know that my mother, my husband wanted that,” said Véronique Hivon, the Parti Québécois (PQ) opposition critic for end-of-life care.

Public consultations are expected in the coming months.

Are the laws on medically-assisted dying too strict?

Last October, Quebec Superior Court Justice Christine Baudouin ruled in favour of two Quebecers living with incurable degenerative diseases who argued both the federal and provincial laws were too restrictive.

The judge ruled that two points were invalid: the Criminal Code's requirement that a natural death be "reasonably foreseeable" before someone can be eligible for assisted death and the provincial requirement that people "be at the end of life."

The Quebec government said it would not appeal the court ruling. The recommendations were written before the judge’s ruling.