Cite as: 511 U. S. 244 (1994)
Scalia, J., concurring in judgments
entirely, see Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 84, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 251-262, or may leave him with an alternate forum that will deny relief for some collateral reason (e. g., a statute of limitations bar). Our jurisdiction cases are explained, I think, by the fact that the purpose of provisions conferring or eliminating jurisdiction is to permit or forbid the exercise of judicial power—so that the relevant event for retroactivity purposes is the moment at which that power is sought to be exercised. Thus, applying a jurisdiction-eliminating statute to undo past judicial action would be applying it retroactively; but applying it to prevent any judicial action after the statute takes effect is applying it prospectively.
Finally, statutes eliminating previously available forms of prospective relief provide another challenge to the Court's approach. Courts traditionally withhold requested injunctions that are not authorized by then-current law, even if they were authorized at the time suit commenced and at the time the primary conduct sought to be enjoined was first engaged in. See, e. g., American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U. S. 184 (1921); Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 464 (1921). The reason, which has nothing to do with whether it is possible to have a vested right to prospective relief, is that "[o]bviously, this form of relief operates only in futuro," ibid. Since the purpose of prospective relief is to affect the future rather than remedy the past, the relevant time for judging its retroactivity is the very moment at which it is ordered.3
3 A focus on the relevant retroactivity event also explains why the presumption against retroactivity is not violated by interpreting a statute to alter the future legal effect of past transactions—so-called secondary retroactivity, see Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 219- 220 (1988) (Scalia, J., concurring) (citing McNulty, Corporations and the Intertemporal Conflict of Laws, 55 Calif. L. Rev. 12, 58-60 (1967)); cf. Cox v. Hart, 260 U. S. 427, 435 (1922). A new ban on gambling applies to existing casinos and casinos under construction, see ante, at 269-270, n. 24, even though it "attaches a new disability" to those past investments. The
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