Od volební kampaně k přímé volbě hlavy státu
Od volební kampaně k přímé volbě hlavy státu

Summary/Abstract: Direct presidential elections seem to proliferate in the parliamentary regimes. The recently amended Czech constitution follows this streamline, despite of many questions raised as for the purpose and objectives to be pursued and/or expectations to be met. If one of the main objectives in support of the amendement was to strengthen democratic scale and linkages in public sphere, one is to be aware of the salience of the public political communication, mainly of electoral campaign. Presidential campaigns differ in many aspects from general elections campaigns, therefore their regulation (of legislative and non legislative nature) deserves to be set up and analysed carefully. Examples of regulations and practices (for the best and the worse) from countries with rich history of presidential campaigns, offer a wide range of models which are either very open to a quite free from any restrain campaigns or very close and strict in terms of rules governing the principles of fair elections. However, one of the dilemma remains to be solved at first: should the rules support free speech (in any form, any time, by any person, by any means) or should they protect and garantee the substance of public sphere (by imposing rather tough transparency regime and by marking the line between public and private space). For a while one is to wait and see, which of the options the Czech Parliament will choose. The author advocates for the later one.

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