Why is this important?
Democracy is a complex constitutional concept, which has both material and procedural content, and includes constitutional principles and elements of a narrower scope. Three elements or principles of broad-based democracy can be distinguished: 1) the sovereignty of the nation, 2) general and recurring elections and referendum, as a form of direct democracy, and 3) parliamentarism, as an institution of representative democracy. The identification of these elements is a question of the jurisprudence of constitutional courts, but one of the impulses to better understand the constitutional value of democracy and its elements could be various discussions on the so-called "democracy deficit" in the structure of the European Union. During these discussions, it is sometimes stated that it is the insufficient development of the principle of democracy in the institutional framework of the European Union that prevents the member states from transferring more of their competences to the EU level. This discussion led to the identification of more elements related to direct and representative democracy, such as opposition rights in parliament, a pluralistic political system, transparent financing of political parties and various forms of citizen participation in public decision-making: from petitions to citizens' legislative initiatives.