The text shows the role of the high courts in the defense of the basic principles of the Constitution. It sustains that the protection also implies the promotional acting that attracts to itself  the task  of  not only preserve rights, but also perform them. From this premise, it shows the exercise of that funtion by the High Court in the Brazilian legal system and in many European constitutional courts. It also sustains that the present challenge is to give substantial basis to such rights or principles, making them capable of being supported by the Constitutional Courts or by the responsible for the constitutional jurisdiction,  supplying referential materials which legitimate the concretization of the Constitution, independent of the mediation of the ordinary legislator.