Abstract
While also examining procedures related to a direct vote for the president in various European countries, findings in the present paper have been based on an interdisciplinary approach to implementing the system through a constitutional amendment in the Czech political system. With occasional references to other European countries, the new legislation on presidential elections in the Czech Republic is presented with a focus on several issues; firstly, the extraordinary importance of the arrangement for the Constitution of the Czech Republic, secondly, technical details regarding insertion of new articles into the Constitution and, thirdly, legal discourses and argumentation by those for and against the direct popular vote for president.
According to an official statement by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, direct election of the president was introduced by means of a constitutional act and replaced the indirect form of election that had been effective since the foundation of the interwar Czechoslovak Republic.