As far as democracy is concerned it is possible for not all legislation to be voted on by the public, instead we can have representatives who decide on most law on our behalf. Provided the representatives themselves are a fair reflection of the voting public then the outcome will not differ too greatly from direct democracy. And in this sense if the representatives deliver a form of government equivalent to that which would be delivered with direct democracy we can call it direct representation.
By its nature direct representation will need to be proportional otherwise the government would not be a fair reflection of the voting public.
We use the term direct to convey the sense that the people are in charge as they should be in a democracy. This means that they (the people) have direct access to the legislative process and can veto any bad laws. It also means that if the legislators fail to serve the people then the people have the power to remove them. If the democracy is not direct (as in the case of first-past-the-post) then it becomes much more difficult to remove bad legislators because of the two-party system which tends to develop.
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