Initially the police said Ihor died from asphyxiation. Only after a forensic expertise discovered that Ihor had severe head and body injuries did the officer involved suddenly “remember” that Ihor had fallen once in the interrogation room and then again inside his cell. Charges of abuse of authority were brought against three officers, but one year later the courts remain silent.

Unfortunately Ihor’s story is not unique. In the very same police station in Kyiv, Vladimir Shulga, a businessman and a witness in the poisoning of former President Yushchenko, was found dead in March 2008. That same year, Timur Fedas, 33 year old was beaten in his cell and subsequently died from head injuries. The police officer that interrogated Timur has never been brought to justice. The situation of police abuse on the national scale is deplorable. In a recent poll 23 percent of police officers acknowledge the use of violence as one of their main tactics.

Violence by Ukrainian police is an ongoing problem and one that has been difficult to eradicate. One way to reduce the risk of police abuse is by setting up an independent mechanism that would make regular, unannounced visits to detention facilities. During 2008–2009 the Ukrainian home affairs ministry made some headway toward this goal when it established a department for human rights monitoring which undertook more than 600 visits to police stations and prisons. A significant number of police abuses were uncovered and conditions during pretrial detention improved.

But in March 2010 the newly appointed home affairs minister Anatoly Mohylyov closed down the human rights department and disbanded the mobile monitoring groups. Since their closure, the number of suspicious deaths in police custody has increased from 21 in 2009 to 50 just one year later. The Kharkiv Institute for Social Research estimates that about 800,000 Ukrainians have suffered from police violence in 2010, up from 600,000 in 2009. Yet lots of abuse goes unreported.

In 2005 the European Union asked the Ukrainian government to combat torture and ill-treatment under the EU-Ukraine Action Plan [pdf]. The following year the Ukrainian government ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and committed to setting up a national torture-prevention mechanism. Five years later no such mechanism exists as the EU has not done enough to insist that Ukraine take action.

This makes me believe that if the EU were harder on the Ukrainian authorities, Ihor would have likely celebrated his 21st birthday today.

In 2009, a draft law on national preventive mechanism was developed by the Ukrainian authorities with participation of civil society organizations. It provides for public monitoring groups visits to detention facilities coordinated by an independent Committee against Torture. Unfortunately the new government that came to power in 2010 scrapped the plan and delayed further the process.

The EU must push the Ukrainian authorities to adopt the law as soon as possible and provide financial support in setting up the scrutiny mechanism. Otherwise stories like those of Ihor, Vladimir, and Timur will continue to be all too common.

I recently returned from Ukraine, where I learned that even these scant achievements are under threat left and right. A closer look reveals a country still struggling to come to terms with its new democratic identity.

On October 31, Ukrainians will vote in local elections. The Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, introduced a new system of elections to city councils. The law reduced the possibility of new candidates, thereby limiting the choice of voters.

But Ukraine’s struggles go beyond the electoral scene. Freedom of expression and media is also under attack, particularly evidence by the worrying rise of censorship.

The largest part of the media market is divided among four oligarchs. A big share of the market is owned by one of the richest businessman in the country, Valeriy Khoroshkovsky. Surprisingly (or not), in March 2010, he was appointed head of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU).

As if that was not enough to keep Khoroshkovsky busy, he has since taken a seat on the National Bank’s board of governors and a seat in the Supreme Council of Justice, a body that appoints and dismisses judges. This was possible since Ukraine still does not have a law on conflict of interests, or one on political party financing. (The Verkhovna Rada also recently postponed again the entry into force of anticorruption laws.)

One way to restrict media freedom is by allocating fewer broadcasting licenses. The Inter Media Group, the company owned by the SBU chief, recently obtained a court decision canceling national broadcasting licenses for its two main competitors, TVi and Channel Five (also the two most outspoken outlets against the government, although still quite marginal in their audience).

Despite legislation allowing for public demonstrations, police in Ukraine have recently been unlawfully restricting demonstrations in public spaces. The most recent case is the limitation of a rally on the 10th anniversary of the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongagdze. Restrictions on any public demonstrations of opposition close to places visited by President Yanukovych reveal a growing level of paranoia.

Other fundamental rights are also being violated. In March the new minister for home affairs closed down the human rights department. Its staff was carrying out unannounced visits of police detention facilities where most of the torture cases usually happen.

Since its closure, 11 cases of suspicious deaths in police custody have been reported, at least a doubling from last year’s total. Five years ago, Ukraine committed towards the UN and EU to establish an independent torture prevention mechanism. No actions have followed since towards this aim.

Despite these numerous shortcomings, Ukraine still aspires to become a member of the EU. Through the European Neighbourhood Policy, created in 2003, the EU committed to help Ukraine improve its economic performance and governance in order to ensure stability and security for EU member states.

However the main objective of the plan was to keep Ukraine out of the EU for as long as possible. This approach ultimately allows for the Ukrainian political cabal to cherry-pick reforms prescribed by the EU (needless to say, building transparent governance and respecting human rights have not been their favorite fruits).

The EU should take up the democratic shortage with Ukrainian authorities directly and not delegate it to a toothless Council of Europe. Instead, the EU prefers not to insist on governance problems as long as Ukraine does not insist on its EU membership.

Moldova is a rare example of successful democratic enforcement through EU conditionality, thanks to the terms imposed by the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers in June 2009. The promise to start negotiations on an Association Agreement was a clear and tangible incentive for the governing elite to address some (but not all) shortcomings of the unfair election campaign.

We welcome the EU's swift reaction in providing an additional package for democracy support, as well as capacitating the new government through the high-level advisors. The EU has to remain vigilant, and monitor and react forcefully if the current government does not translate soon its good intentions into real change for the population.

A few areas are essential for sustainable improvement of governance in Moldova:

Constitutional and electoral reforms: The long-lasting political crisis of 2009 was a consequence of an imperfect system set in the constitution and the electoral legislation. A commission for constitutional reform was quickly set up that immediately concluded in favour of adopting a new document.

However the work of the commission is neither transparent nor inclusive. As the commission discusses and suggests amending the fundamentals of the political system, it should reach out to all political forces and include civil society in a public debate. It would thereby avoid the previous mistake of adopting solutions that favour exclusively the current political forces in power and therefore create political stalemate as happened in Ukraine. While the Venice Commission is better placed to provide advice on constitutional reforms, the EU should put pressure on the authorities to open and widen the public debate.

Investigation of human rights abuses committed after the April 2009 elections: The data collected by the Soros Foundation-Moldova shows that local police ill-treated at least 300 peaceful protesters of the nearly 700 they detained following the elections in April. A group of independent lawyers documented personal accounts of people who suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and verbal abuse at the hands of police. Following an EU demand, the authorities set up an independent Investigation Commission, while the Prosecutor's office re-launched an investigation of individual cases of mistreatment.

Ten months later, Moldovan authorities have failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. To end impunity and restore confidence in the justice system will require profound revision of Moldovan legislation and strengthening of the existing safeguards in the law. The Council of Europe's enforcement of Moldova's commitments proved to be ineffective. Only the EU has the power to activate this process through clear conditions linked, for instance, to a visa liberalisation roadmap or an enhanced Association Agenda.

The way the authorities handled the post-electoral manifestations in April 2009 revealed the weakest link of governance in Moldova - law enforcement. The main problems are the political dependence of the criminal justice system and the systemic use of torture by the police. Our survey shows a very high level of fear in Moldova, where 58% of people are of the view that the state fails to ensure their personal safety.

There is also low public expectation of the judiciary owing to human rights infringements in the criminal justice system. Police reform is urgent, to change it in the direction of serving the needs of citizens, rather than its current role of being a police force serving the state. Although the EU lacks the competence and capacity to enforce such reforms, it could use its conditionality and funding instruments to encourage and monitor the process.

The lack of an independent judiciary only exacerbates the conflict. The EU cannot expect a better-governed Ukraine until a new constitution is adopted and the judiciary reformed. The recent elections opened a new opportunity to solve this problem.

The Venice Commission and Council of Europe are good sources of advice, but they need the EU's leverage to move on constitutional reform. Only high-level EU pressure would convince the political elites to negotiate and agree on a new constitution. To this end, the EU should initiate a high-level roundtable on constitutional reform, bringing together key Ukrainian political actors, independent experts, high-profile political actors from the EU member states and representatives of international institutions. The roundtable should outline the key principles on which reform of the constitution, judiciary and electoral system should be based.

The EU can encourage change in two ways. First, the EU could offer tangible incentives in the same way it reacted to the Orange Revolution. The incentives, but also the conditions, could include a visa-free roadmap modeled upon the experience of the Western Balkan countries, and speeding up the process of negotiations on the Association Agreement. A clause in the preamble in which the EU took note of Ukraine's desire to join the EU in future (just as an encouragement, with no commitment on the EU side) would give the document weight in Ukraine. The EU could also offer additional people-to-people opportunities, e.g. more scholarship and exchange programs for youth, students, researchers and civil society.

Second, in exchange for the incentives, the EU should demand that key political actors take an open political commitment to pursue constitutional reform. Ideally, this should take the form of a written declaration agreed by the president, prime minister, speaker and leaders of the political groups represented in the Parliament. The EU should then supervise its implementation. Such a document would also serve as an important reference point for the international community and Ukrainian civil society in order to push for reforms.