Britons suffering from depression could soon be legally helped to die in Switzerland if a test case in the country's Supreme Court is successful next month.

Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, the Zurich-based organisation which has already helped 54 Britons to die, said that his group was seeking to overturn the law which only allows them to assist people with a terminal illness.

Speaking at a Liberal Democrat fringe event, he blamed religion for stigmatising suicide, calling this "stupid ecclesiastical superstition" and said he believed that assisted suicide should be open to everyone.

"We should see in principle suicide as a marvellous possibility given to human beings because they have a conscience... If you accept the idea of personal autonomy, you can’t make conditions that only terminally ill people should have this right," he said.

"We should accept generally the right of a human being to say ‘Right, I would like to end my life’, without any pre-condition, as long as this person has capacity of discernment."

Mr Minelli was there at the invitation of Chris Davies, a Liberal Democrat MEP. The party supports the option of medical assistance to die. Although Mr Davies suggested their was some merit in the discussion, he did not back the suggestion to widen assisted suicide beyond the terminally ill.

Mr Minelli said a case was due to be heard at the Supreme Court in Switzerland on October 27 of a person suffering from bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression, who wants to be allowed to die in an assisted suicide.

A ruling in favour of the patient would have implications across Europe, Mr Minelli said.

He said it was logical that all suicide should be assisted "because this is the only way to give people the chance to speak to somebody prior to suicide". Such a move would help cut the suicide rate to around 20 per cent to 25 per cent of its current level, he said, adding: "You could avoid the huge majority and reduce costs to the health services."

Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying Bill was rejected by the House of Lords in May. In Switzerland, assisted dying is allowed as long as the person aiding the suicide can show it was not undertaken for personal gain.

Mr Minelli said he believed that the medical profession in the UK would gradually accept a change in the law. Less than 1 per cent of Britons with a terminal illness or condition which would leave them incapacitated would choose to end their life this way, he added.

"There’s no slippery slope at all. There’s no problem at all," he said. "Opponents of such a solution should first ask ‘What is your religion and what are the dogmas that have been told to you in early age?’ and only after that bring your arguments, then weigh them."

Mr Minelli, 73, runs two flats in the same house in Zurich where people go to die. Dignitas is a not-for-profit organisation.

Sophie Pandit, 42, told the meeting that no amount of palliative care would have helped her mother, Dr Anne Taylor, from Bath, who died at Dignitas in January. Dr Taylor suffered from the degenerative disease Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and died the day before her 67th birthday.

Mrs Pandit said: "If there would have been an opportunity in England to do it, she (Dr Turner) would be alive today. These people have to make a decision to travel to Switzerland. So, sometimes they come prematurely when they could live on, if we had the possibility to come to them where they live, to help them there."

She added: "My father died of a similar illness to my mother. He died very slowly, had a very long, drawn-out, dreadful death and ended up starving himself in a nursing home."

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