Laws enacted to protect people must actually offer that protection and any laws that encroach upon our liberties should do so no more than is absolutely necessary.

Despite lengthy parliamentary debates, assessment of the impact of laws on fundamental rights and freedoms may be overlooked in the pursuit of political and economic goals.

While Tasmania can be justly proud of its record in protecting fundamental rights and freedoms, legislation has been enacted that encroaches on basic rights.

If laws erode the division of powers between the parliament, the judiciary and the executive arms of government by extending the discretionary powers of the executive without providing for meaningful scrutiny by our courts, they will undermine our long-established democratic institutions.

Take, for example, the Liquor Licensing Amendment Bill 2015 tabled in Parliament by Treasurer Peter Gutwein on September 22.

The bill seeks to strike a balance between regulating the sale of alcohol, harm minimisation, industry development and strengthening consumer responsibility.

The bill gives Tasmania Police the power to issue barring orders to people that prohibit them from entering any licensed premises in an area specified by the police officer for up to six months.

The grounds on which the order may be made are broad and vague.

They include 'any reasonable grounds'.

A person could be banned from a very wide range of premises and a very wide area for up to six months entirely at the discretion of Tasmania Police without ever having been charged with an offence.

While such measures may have an implied therapeutic intent, none are specified.

Their thrust and effect is punitive and controlling. Such orders are open to abuse and to discriminatory application.

The barring orders are reviewable only by the Commissioner of Tasmania Police.

Importantly, they are never subject to judicial oversight.

Yet they look, in all but name, like trial, conviction and penalisation, but without a court being anywhere in sight.

This bill clearly makes significant inroads into the separation of powers that is a fundamental plank of our democratic system.

Such legislation confirms the need to reinforce our democratic system of checks and balances. This can be done.

Commissioned in 2006 to investigate how this might be achieved, the Tasmania Law Reform Institute recommended the establishment of an oversight body to ensure that bills before Parliament comply with fundamental rights or encroach upon them in a minimalist manner and only where clearly and unavoidably necessary.

Such a body is yet to be established in Tasmania.

Such a body would enable greater scrutiny of proposed laws and enhance transparency in the law making process.

Terese Henning is the director of the Tasmania Law Reform Institute and a lecturer at the University of Tasmania. The views in this article are not expressed on behalf of those of the university or the institute.