The proposed Garda Bill appears to increase the level of executive control exercised by the Minister for Justice over the force, according to the Human Rights Commission.
The commission proposes instead the vesting of oversight and appointment functions in an independent body, such as a Police Authority as recommended by the Patten Report on policing in Northern Ireland.
The commission generally welcomed the contents of the published Bill, and pointed to recommendations in its earlier submission on the draft Heads of Bill published last July.
"The published Bill largely reflects the recommendations of the HRC," said the president of the commission, Dr Maurice Manning.
"In the view of the HRC the publication of the Garda Bill, and in particular the establishment of the Garda Ombudsman Commission, marks a historic step towards placing human rights at the centre of Irish policing," he said.
"We believe that this legislation has the potential to greatly strengthen the capacity of the Garda Síochána as a consensual police service aspiring to the highest international standards of human rights protection and promotion."
However, the submission expresses concern at the fact that several sections of the Bill give broad discretionary powers to the Minister in relation to the operation of the force, and extends the system of political appointments of senior officers to the rank of superintendent.
It also urged the strengthening of the provision that all investigations into allegations of misconduct by members of the force, except the most minor, be conducted by the Ombudsman Commission.
The Human Rights Commission believes that causing "death or serious harm" is too narrow a definition of the kind of complaint to require mandatory investigation by the Ombudsman Commission.
The Human Rights Commission is also concerned that the Official Secrets Act will apply to investigating staff of the Ombudsman Commission, and that searches of Garda stations will be restricted to material relevant to a specific complaint.
It pointed out that at present international human rights bodies, like the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture, has unrestricted freedom to enter police stations without prior notification.