434
Opinion of Ginsburg, J.
refusals to certify at the behest of defending employees. See § 2679(d)(3). Congress, in Lamagno's view, thus plainly intended the one-sided review, i. e., a court check at the call of the defending employee, but no check at the tort plaintiff's call.
We recognize that both sides have tendered plausible constructions of a text most interpreters have found far from clear. See, e. g., McHugh v. University of Vermont, 966 F. 2d 67, 72 (CA2 1992) ("[T]he text of the Westfall Act, viewed as a whole, is ambiguous."); Arbour v. Jenkins, 903 F. 2d 416, 421 (CA6 1990) ("[T]he scope certification provisions of the Westfall Act as a whole . . . [are] ambiguous regarding the reviewability of the Attorney General's scope certification."). Indeed, the United States initially took the position that the local United States Attorney's scope-of-employment certifications are conclusive and unreviewable but, on further consideration, changed its position. See Brief for United States 14, n. 4. Because the statute is reasonably susceptible to divergent interpretation, we adopt the reading that accords with traditional understandings and basic principles: that executive determinations generally are subject to judicial review and that mechanical judgments are not the kind federal courts are set up to render. Under our reading, the Attorney General's certification that a federal employee was acting within the scope of his employment—a certification the executive official, in cases of the kind at issue, has a compelling interest to grant—does not conclusively establish as correct the substitution of the United States as defendant in place of the employee.
IV
Treating the Attorney General's certification as conclusive for purposes of removal but not for purposes of substitution, amicus ultimately argues, "raise[s] a potentially serious Article III problem." Brief for Michael K. Kellogg as Amicus Curiae 29. If the certification is rejected, because the fed-
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