360
Breyer, J., dissenting
In addition, the surrounding procedural provisions are most naturally read as favoring the flexible interpretation. The immediately preceding provision requires the court to rule "promptly" upon the motion to terminate and says that "[m]andamus shall lie to remedy any failure to issue a prompt ruling." 18 U. S. C. § 3626(e)(1). If a motion to terminate takes effect automatically through the "stay" after 30 or 90 days, it is difficult to understand what purpose would be served by providing for mandamus—a procedure that itself (in so complicated a matter) could take several weeks. But if the automatic stay might be modified or lifted in an unusual case, providing for mandamus makes considerable sense. It guarantees that an appellate court will make certain that unusual circumstances do in fact justify any such modification or lifting of the stay. A later provision that provides for immediate appeal of any order "staying, suspending, delaying, or barring the operation of the automatic stay" can be read as providing for similar appellate review for similar reasons. § 3626(e)(4).
Further, the legislative history is neutral, for it is silent on this issue. Yet there is relevant judicial precedent. That precedent does not read statutory silence as denying judges authority to exercise their traditional equitable powers. Rather, it reads statutory silence as authorizing the exercise of those powers. This Court has said, for example, that "[o]ne thing is clear. Where Congress wished to deprive the courts of this historic power, it knew how to use apt words— only once has it done so and in a statute born of the exigencies of war." Scripps-Howard, supra, at 17. Compare Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182, 186-187 (1943) (finding that courts were deprived of equity powers where the statute explicitly removed jurisdiction), with Scripps-Howard, supra, at 8-10 (refusing to read silence as depriving courts of their historic equity power), and Califano, 442 U. S., at 705-706 (same). These cases recognize the importance of permitting courts in equity cases to tailor relief, and related
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