The publication examines the doctrinal principles on the forms of direct democracy and the existing problems regarding the exercise of power by the people. Based on the historical perspective of the analysis of European legislation in this area, ways of improving the Basic Law of Ukraine are proposed.
 It was established that, despite the insignificant and contradictory support of the thinkers of the ancient world and the Middle Ages regarding the need to recognize the right of the people to cancel the legislative acts of the representative bodies of the state, this idea received significant development precisely in the era of the New Age, when the proclamation of people's rule was accompanied by the establishment of parliamentarism, the authority and trust of which is constantly fell among the common people. It has been proven that the essence of such judgments was that modern democracy is based on the idea of popular sovereignty, that is, on the need to create such a system of state-legal relations that would ensure the primacy of law in all spheres of social relations and enable the people to exercise their right to be the source and basis state power precisely because of various forms of political participation in the state management of the country, one of which is participation in the exercise of judicial power.
 It has been determined that the views of thinkers in support of forms of people's power boil down to the fact that the right to limit state power is recognized as an inalienable, natural human right that belongs to them from birth. Therefore, people's power itself is one of the means related to the system of checks and balances, and therefore helps not only the normal functioning of state authorities by exercising control over the actions of their representatives, but also the direct exercise of power by the people, which thereby helps to ensure the principle of popular sovereignty.
 It has been established that today the practice of applying forms of direct democracy is significantly ahead of theoretical developments in this area. This very issue is voluminous, and at the same time there are a large number of gaps and contradictions in the possibility of constitutional consolidation of new forms of people's rule.