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Opinion of Scalia, J.
tion"—because it "can take no active resolution whatever" and "may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment." The Federalist No. 78, p. 396 (M. Beloff ed. 1987). It is contrary to the most fundamental principles of separation of powers for the District Court to decree measures that would eliminate obstruction of traffic, in a lawsuit which has established nothing more than trespass.4
* * *
Today's opinion makes a destructive inroad upon First Amendment law in holding that the validity of an injunction against speech is to be determined by an appellate court on the basis of what the issuing court might reasonably have found as to necessity, rather than on the basis of what it in fact found. And it makes a destructive inroad upon the separation of powers in holding that an injunction may contain measures justified by the public interest apart from remediation of the legal wrong that is the subject of the complaint. Insofar as the first point is concerned, the Court might properly have upheld the fixed buffer zone without the cease-and-desist provision, since the District Court evidently did conclude (with proper factual support, in my view) that limiting the protesters to two was necessary to prevent repe-4 The Court approves reliance on "public safety" not "as an element which supported respondents' claim for an injunction," but only "as a basis for rejecting petitioners' challenge to the injunction on First Amendment grounds." Ante, at 376, n. 7. Such a distinction makes no sense. In the context before us here, whether there is "a basis for rejecting petitioners' challenge to the injunction on First Amendment grounds" depends entirely on whether the "element[s] which suppor[t] the respondents' claim for an injunction" are strong enough. The issues are one and the same.
Any injunction must be justified by the elements that support it. The involvement of First Amendment rights does not alter that rule, but merely increases the degree of justification required. Of course, illogical or not, by simply saying so, the Court can limit its novel "public safety" rationale to injunctions involving the freedom of speech. But I would hardly consider that a small and unimportant area for the newly created judicial Committees of Public Safety to control.
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