Cite as: 515 U. S. 417 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
judge in his own cause."); 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *91 ("[I]t is unreasonable that any man should determine his own quarrel.").
In sum, under Lamagno's reading of the congressional product at issue, whenever the case falls within an exception to the FTCA, the Attorney General sits as an unreviewable "judge in her own cause"; she can block petitioners' way to a tort action in court, at no cost to the federal treasury, while avoiding litigation in which the United States has no incentive to engage, and incidentally enhancing the morale—or at least sparing the purse—of federal employees. The United States, as we have noted, disavows this extraordinary, conspicuously self-serving interpretation. See supra, at 424, and n. 4. Recognizing that a United States Attorney, in cases of this order, is hardly positioned to act impartially, the Attorney General reads the law to allow judicial review.
2
If Congress made the Attorney General's delegate sole judge, despite the apparent conflict of interest, then Congress correspondingly assigned to the federal court only rubber-stamp work. Upon certification in a case such as this one, the United States would automatically become the defendant and, just as automatically, the case would be dismissed. The key question presented—scope of employment—however contestable in fact, would receive no judicial audience. The court could do no more, and no less, than convert the executive's scarcely disinterested decision into a court judgment. This strange course becomes all the more surreal when one adds to the scene the absence of an obligation on the part of the Attorney General's delegate to conduct a fair proceeding, indeed, any proceeding. She need not give the plaintiff an opportunity to speak to the "scope" question, or even notice that she is considering the question. Nor need she give any explanation for her action.
429
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