Justiciable charters of rights give courts a dynamic and controversial role in governance, which is in tension with the roles of the executive and the legislature. In this essay I comment, from the British point of view, on the way in which these tensions work out in the law of the European Convention on Human Rights. I argue that politicians need to accept that the tension between the role of the courts and the roles of the executive and the legislature will be permanent, and is not a reason for withdrawing from the Convention, or for ignoring the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.