Cite as: 530 U. S. 327 (2000)
Syllabus
a continuing, executory decree remains subject to alteration due to changes in the underlying law. Cf. Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 273. This conclusion follows from the Court's decision in Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421, 432 (Wheeling Bridge II), that prospective relief it issued in Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 13 How. 518 (Wheeling Bridge I), became unenforceable after Congress altered the law underlying the ongoing relief. Applied here, the Wheeling Bridge II principles demonstrate that § 3626(e)(2)'s automatic stay does not unconstitutionally suspend or reopen an Article III court's judgment. It does not tell judges when, how, or what to do, but reflects the change implemented by § 3626(b), which establishes new standards for prospective relief. As Plaut and Wheeling Bridge II instruct, when Congress changes the law underlying the judgment awarding such relief, that relief is no longer enforceable to the extent it is inconsistent with the new law. Although the remedial injunction here is a final judgment for purposes of appeal, it is not the last word of the judicial department, for it is subject to the court's continuing supervisory jurisdiction, and therefore may be altered according to subsequent changes in the law. For the same reasons, § 3626(e)(2) does not violate the separation of powers principle articulated in United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, where the Court found unconstitutional a statute purporting to prescribe rules of decision to the Federal Judiciary in cases pending before it. That § 3626(e)(2) does not itself amend the legal standard does not help respondents; when read in the context of § 3626 as a whole, the provision does not prescribe a rule of decision but imposes the consequences of the court's application of the new legal standard. Finally, Congress' imposition of the time limit in § 3626(e)(2) does not offend the structural concerns underlying the separation of powers. Whether that time is so short that it deprives litigants of an opportunity to be heard is a due process question not before this Court. Nor does the Court have occasion to decide here whether there could be a time constraint on judicial action that was so severe that it implicated structural separation of powers concerns. Pp. 341-350.
178 F. 3d 437, reversed and remanded.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in which Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined as to Parts I and II. Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Ginsburg, J., joined, post, p. 350. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, J., joined, post, p. 353.
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