HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge:
This case requires us to rule on the constitutionality of an aspect of the Speedy Trial Act of 1972, as amended, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161 et seq. The district court held the Act invalid as “an unconstitutional en[692]*692croachment upon the Judiciary.” United States v. Brainer, 515 F.Supp. 627, 630 (D.Md.1981).1 It therefore refused to dismiss the indictment against defendant even though trial was delayed beyond the period permitted by the Act. Having been convicted, defendant appeals. Because we find that the Act is constitutional and defendant’s trial was in violation thereof, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I.
On July 2, 1980, defendant William Brainer and three other persons were indicted for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and methaqualone in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. His codefendants were also charged with other offenses; one was convicted of a substantive offense on a plea of guilty, and the other two were acquitted.
At the time of disposition of the codefendants’ cases, Brainer was a fugitive from justice. He was arrested in the State of Washington on January 19, 1981, and brought before the district court in the District of Maryland on January 30,1981. The latest date on which Brainer could have been tried consistently with the Speedy Trial Act was April 10, 1981 (assuming the absence of excludable time).2 Although apprised of this deadline, the district court scheduled the trial for April 20, 1981.
Before the trial began, Brainer moved to dismiss his indictment for lack of a speedy trial.3 Encouraged perhaps by the district court’s expressed view in an earlier opinion,4 the government then took the position that the Act was unconstitutional. Upholding that position, the district court denied defendant’s motion and held that the strict time limits and mandatory dismissal sanction of the Act infringe on the constitutionally autonomous power of the federal judiciary and offend the constitutional doctrine of the separation of powers. Defendant was then convicted in a bench trial on a stipulated statement of facts and sentenced to two years’ probation pursuant to the Federal Youth Correction Act as extended by the Young Adult Offenders Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 5010(a) and 4216. This appeal ensued.
On appeal, the government joined defendant in urging that the Act is constitutional. Confronted with this anomaly, we appointed an amicus curiae to argue in support of the district court’s judgment.5 The amicus briefed the case and appeared at a second oral argument, at which the government and defendant were also heard.
II.
Before reaching the constitutional question at hand, we must consider jurisdictional issues raised by the government’s [693]*693change of position on appeal: namely, whether that development moots the case or whether the lack of adversariness in the parties’ legal arguments on appeal deprives this suit of the status of a case or controversy within the meaning of Article III of the Constitution. Although neither the parties nor the amicus question our power to decide this case, we must make an independent determination of our jurisdiction whenever its existence may be in doubt.
There is no question but that the parties litigated a case or controversy as adversaries in the district court. Defendant sought to avoid an adjudication of guilt and imposition of sentence by having his indictment dismissed for violation of the Act, and the government sought to hold him to the charges by asserting the invalidity of the statute on which he relied. The district court decided the issue on the merits, struck down the Act, and proceeded to convict and sentence defendant in spite of the fact that the Act mandated dismissal.
We acquired jurisdiction when Brainer filed his notice of appeal. At that critical juncture, the parties were definitely embroiled in a pressing controversy which in no sense had become moot: defendant was still opposing criminal charges, and the government was resting on its victory. It had taken no steps to relieve defendant of the judgment of conviction or of the restrictions imposed on him by the sentence of probation.
Under the circumstances, we think it clear that the government’s subsequent change of position neither mooted the case nor otherwise transformed it into something less than a case or controversy. To be sure, the arguments of counsel are no longer mutually adverse; the government now concedes the correctness of defendant’s view of the law and unites in his request that the judgment against him be reversed. But the Supreme Court has said that no confession of error by the government respecting a criminal conviction shall “relieve this Court of the performance of the judicial function ... to examine independently the errors confessed.” Young v. United States, 315 U.S. 257, 258-59, 62 S.Ct. 510, 511-512, 86 L.Ed. 832 (1941). See also Casey v. United States, 343 U.S. 808, 809-10, 72 S.Ct. 999, 1000, 96 L.Ed. 1317 (1952) (Douglas, J., dissenting); Senior v. Braden, 295 U.S. 422, 440, 55 S.Ct. 800, 806, 79 L.Ed. 1520 (1935) (Stone, J.,'dissenting).
When the government confesses error in the Supreme Court, and thus abandons a position taken in a lower court, the Court commonly appoints an amicus to assert the abandoned cause. See, e.g., Goldsboro Christian Schools v. United States, 456 U.S. 922, 102 S.Ct. 1964, 72 L.Ed.2d 437 (1982); Brown v. Hartlage, 454 U.S. 936, 102 S.Ct. 471, 70 L.Ed.2d 245 (1981); Granville-Smith v. Granville-Smith, 349 U.S. 1, 4, 75 S.Ct. 553, 555, 99 L.Ed. 773 (1955). We have followed that procedure here. The necessary implication of the Supreme Court’s practice is that a lawsuit neither becomes moot nor loses the adversariness essential to a case or controversy merely because one party, on appeal, endorses its adversary’s view of the law.
Having determined that we have jurisdiction to proceed, we see no way of avoiding the constitutional issue on which this case turns. The district court, at the government’s urging, squarely ruled the Act unconstitutional. The judge who so ruled can be expected to adhere to that ruling in future cases unless we instruct otherwise. See note 1 supra. Apparently, however, his view has not been endorsed by other judges of his district. As a result, there is a serious risk of inconsistency in the administration of criminal justice in that district. Future cases, however, are unlikely to present the issue in a better posture because, unless the government reverses its position a second time, it will always find itself in agreement with those defendants who argue that the Act is constitutional and that trials held in clear violation of the Act are invalid. In our view, a constitutional determination is necessary to the disposition of the present case and the ends of justice would not be served by deferring the issue for another day.
[694]*694We, of course, take notice that our brother who concurs specially would decide the case on the very narrow ground that dismissal of the indictment is required because of the violation of Local Rule 30(4)(a) of the District of Maryland which, with exceptions inapplicable here, sets a seventy-day limit to commence the trial of criminal cases. He is of the view that the Maryland district judges have independently concluded to set trial time limits for the administration of criminal justice in the District of Maryland which are in concordance with the standards of the Speedy Trial Act; Although fully cognizant of our obligation not to reach out to decide constitutional questions when cases can be terminated on non-constitutional grounds, we are unable to accept his thesis. Maryland’s Local Rule 30 recites that it is adopted “[pjursuant to the requirements of Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Speedy Trial Act ... and the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act .... ” Since Rule 50(b) is merely a directive to conduct studies for improvement in the administration of criminal justice and to comply with the Speedy Trial Act and since defendant in this case is not a juvenile, it is manifest that Local Rule 30, so far as it applies to defendant, is one which was adopted by the district court under the authority of the Act. If the rule was violated it is equally clear that the question of the constitutional validity of the Act is raised.
The clearest indication of the necessity of deciding the constitutional issue is found in the sanctions provisions of Local Rule 30. Section 10(a) states:
Dismissal. Failure to comply with the time limits prescribed herein shall not require dismissal of the prosecution, except as required by 18 U.S.C. sections 3162, 3164, 5036, or the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. The court retains the power to dismiss a case for unnecessary delay pursuant to Rule 48(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.6
From this language we think it apparent that the only mandatory sanction for violation of the time limitation requirements of the rule is that contained in the Act, thus again bringing into issue the constitutional validity of the Act. An examination of the antecedents of present Local Rule 30 supports this view. In the version adopted June 20, 1973 before enactment of the Act (January 3, 1975), the rule fixed a maximum ninety-day period between arraignment and trial but provided that “failure to conform with the time limits herein prescribed shall not require dismissal of the prosecution.” The rule was amended May 26, 1976, and again it provided that “[ejxcept as required by 18 U.S.C. § 5036 [relating to juveniles] or the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, failure to comply with the time limits prescribed herein shall not require dismissal of the prosecution.” That version was repealed on November 27, 1979 and the present rule, adopted June 30, 1980, became effective July 1, 1980. The history thus demonstrates that, while the judges of the District Court of Maryland have repeatedly set time limits on the trial of criminal cases, they adopted the sanction of dismissal for violation of the limits only under the compulsion of the Act and in the exercise of the authority vested in them by the Act.
In sum, we conclude that the constitutional issue is before us and it is our duty to decide it.
III.
We turn now to the merits. In striking down the Act, the district court relied on two distinct arguments: (1) that the Act’s mandatory dismissal sanction for violation of its deadline determines “the [695]*695actual substantive outcome of individual criminal cases” and thereby usurps the adjudicative role which the Constitution assigns to the judiciary; and (2) that the Act is “an unwarranted intrusion into the administration of the judicial system.” 515 F.Supp. at 636. We find neither argument persuasive.
A. Claimed Determination of Outcome.
The district court supported its first argument by reference to United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1871). There the Supreme Court struck down a federal statute providing that no Presidential pardon accorded former noncombatant rebels should be admitted as evidence of loyalty to the United States, and, further, that a person’s acceptance of such a pardon without written protest should be conclusive evidence of disloyalty. The statute also purported to deprive the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over pending claims based on such pardons. The Court held that the statute violated the separation of powers in that it “inadvertently passed the limit which separates the legislative from the judicial power” by “forbiddpng] [the Court] to give an effect to evidence which, in its own judgment, such evidence should have, and [by directing the Court] to give it an effect precisely contrary.” The Court also noted that that statute “impair[ed] the effect of a pardon, and thus infringed] the constitutional power of the Executive.” Id. at 146-47.
Klein includes sweeping dicta casting doubt on Congress’ power to “prescribe rules of decision to the judicial department of the government in cases pending before it.” Id. at 146. Such dicta, however, are troublesome inasmuch as the prescription of general rules of substantive law lies at the heart of the legislative function, and courts are obliged to apply the positive law in effect at the time of the judgment. See P. Bator, D. Shapiro, P. Mishkin & H. Wechsler, Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System, 316 n.4 (2d ed. 1973). Hence the better reading of Klein is quite narrow and construes the case as holding only that Congress violates the separation of powers when it presumes to dictate “how the Court should decide an issue of fact (under threat of loss of jurisdiction)” and purports “to bind the Court to decide a case in accordance with a rule of law independently unconstitutional on other grounds.” Id. at 316.7 Thus confined, Klein does not support the district court’s decision in the instant case.
We assume that the application of existing law to the facts of a case properly before the courts is a judicial function which the legislature may not constitutionally usurp. Klein is nevertheless inapposite, since the Speedy Trial Act lays down no “rules of decision,” but only rules of practice and procedure. Many cases have upheld the power of Congress to prescribe rules of practice and procedure for the federal courts.8 See Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460,472, 85 S.Ct. 1136, 1144, 14 L.Ed.2d 8 (1965); Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 353 n.11, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1225 n.11, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959); Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 467, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 1244, 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943); Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U.S. 1, 9, 61 S.Ct. 422, 424, 85 L.Ed. 479 (1941); Wayman v. Southard, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 1, 43, 6 L.Ed. 253 (1825). As a matter of facial constitutionality, we see no difference between the time constraints and dismissal sanction of the Speedy Trial Act [696]*696and the host of other procedural requirements of unquestioned validity by which Congress regulates the courts of its creation — such measures as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and statutes prescribing who may sue and where and for what.
The district court’s characterization of the Act as arrogating “the judicial function of determining guilt or innocence,” 515 F.Supp. at 636, simply cannot be sustained. Statutes of limitation provide perhaps the closest analogy. Few would suggest that such statutes intrude upon the judiciary’s substantive decisional role. The suggestion rings just as hollow when applied to the time limits and dismissal sanction of the Speedy Trial Act, which dispose of cases solely on the procedural ground of undue delay and without regard to the guilt or innocence of the accused.
B. Claimed Violation of Separation of Powers.
The district court’s second ground of decision was that the Speedy Trial Act violates the separation of powers by abridging the courts’ inherent power to administer their dockets. See 515 F.Supp. at 631. In support of this argument, the district court marshaled a line of state court decisions invalidating efforts by state legislatures to fix mandatory deadlines for the disposition of pending cases. See Resolute Insurance Co. v. Seventh Judicial District Court of Oklahoma County, 336 F.Supp. 497, 503 (W.D.Okl.1971) (construing Oklahoma constitution); Sands v. Albert Pike Motor Hotel, 245 Ark. 755, 434 S.W.2d 288 (1968); Holliman v. State, 175 Ga. 232, 165 S.E. 11, 14-15 (1932); State ex rel. Kotsas v. Johnson, 224 Ind. 540, 69 N.E.2d 592, 595 (1946); Riglander v. Star Construction Co., 98 App. Div. 101, 90 N.Y.S. 772 (1905); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Long, 122 Okl. 86, 251 P. 486 (1926). See also Lindauer v. Allen, 85 Nev. 430, 456 P.2d 851 (1969).
Representative of these cases is Schario v. State, 105 Ohio St 535, 138 N.E. 63 (1922). The Ohio legislature enacted a statute providing that convictions for a certain criminal offense could be appealed only within thirty days of judgment, and then only if the appellate court heard the appeal within thirty days of its filing. The Supreme Court of Ohio struck down the statute on the ground that “the legislative branch of the government is without constitutional authority to limit the judicial branch of the government in respect to when it shall hear or determine any cause of action within its lawful jurisdiction.” 138 N.E. at 64. The court said:
Whether or not justice is administered without “denial or delay” is a matter for which the judges are answerable to the people, and not to the General Assembly of Ohio. Manifestly, when a case can be heard and determined by a court must necessarily depend very largely upon the court docket, the gravity of business submitted to the court, the nature, the importance, and the difficulties attending the just and legal solution of matters involved. It would be obviously unfair to the court, as well as to other parties interested in the early and expeditious determination of their causes, to require a court to suspend or delay equally important matters therefore submitted to the court for its consideration and determination in order to give preference to some particular case or character of cases. At least, that is a matter that should be most properly and wisely left to the sound discretion of the court.
Whether or to what extent the federal courts possess a power of self-administration which invokes the separation of powers doctrine is apparently a question of first impression. Federal cases have sometimes recognized that a federal trial court possesses “inherent power to control its own docket to ensure that cases proceed before it in a timely and orderly fashion.” United States v. Correia, 531 F.2d 1095, 1098 (1 Cir. 1976). See Landis v. North American Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254, 57 S.Ct. 163,165, 81 L.Ed. 153 (1936). Such references, however, [697]*697merely underscore a federal trial court’s discretion in the issuance of stays and continuances and the limited scope of appellate review of such decisions. It is another matter altogether to argue that federal courts possess inherent power over their dockets to the exclusion of direct congressional efforts to improve the administration of justice.
Arguably, whatever control federal courts wield over their dockets is merely a power to make procedural rules in the absence of congressional directives. Cf. Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 353 n.11, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1225 n.11, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959) (“The power of this Court to prescribe rules of procedure exists only in the absence of a relevant Act of Congress”). If so, the time limits and dismissal sanction of the Speedy Trial Act assuredly constitute a valid procedural directive which preempt any contrary assertion of inherent power by the court. As such, they must be obeyed.
There may be grounds, however, for distinguishing between procedure and administration and recognizing a limited power of institutional self-administration in the federal judiciary. See generally Levin & Amsterdam, Legislative Control over Judicial Rulemaking: A Problem in Constitutional Revision, 107 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1 (1958).9 For present purposes, we assume without deciding that federal courts possess some measure of administrative independence such that congressional intervention would, at some extreme point, “pass[ ] the limit which separates the legislative from the judicial power.” Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 147. It does not follow, however, that the Speedy Trial Act represents such an extreme. See Comment, 91 Harv.L.Rev. 1925 (1978).
The principle of the separation of powers does not set the three branches of government apart in absolute isolation. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 707, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3107, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). As Justice Jackson wrote in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952): “While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon the branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity.” Id. at 635, 72 S.Ct. at 870 (concurring opinion).
Because the separation of powers is not an absolute, but a working principle of government, the Supreme Court takes “a pragmatic, flexible approach” when called upon to adjudicate clashes between coordinate branches. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 442, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2789, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977).10 In determining whether the Speedy Trial Act disrupts the constitutional balance between [698]*698Congress and the courts, “the proper inquiry focuses on the extent to which [the Act] prevents the [judiciary] from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions.” Id. at 443, 97 S.Ct. at 2790. A considerable degree of congressional intervention in judicial administration is constitutionally permissible if such intervention is “justified by an overriding need to promote objectives within the constitutional authority of Congress.” Id. (citation omitted).
While the district court purported to apply the mode of analysis prescribed in Nixon v. Administrator, see 515 F.Supp. at 635, we think that its discussion merely assailed the wisdom of the Speedy Trial Act. Its opinion criticizes the “premise that the Legislature is better suited to regulating judicial procedure than the courts themselves.” Id. at 636-37. It argues that Congress, in passing the Act, accorded too much weight to speedy criminal trials and too little weight to the burden which the Act’s time limits place upon the courts and the resulting disruption of their civil dockets. See id. at 637-38. By way of example, the opinion notes that if the Act had been given effect in this case, a long-scheduled civil antitrust case would necessarily have been rescheduled — a result which the court deemed “the height of judicial inefficiency and inequity.” Id. at 640.
Under Nixon v. Administrator, the first question should be whether the prescription of speedy trial deadlines is “within the constitutional authority of Congress.” The district court implied that since the Sixth Amendment protects the right to a speedy trial in inexact terms,11 Congress may not properly fix definite time limits for trial. 515 F.Supp. at 639. The Sixth Amendment, however, merely secures certain minimal trial rights against encroachment by government. In no way does it prevent Congress from according the accused more protection than the Constitution requires, nor does it preclude Congress from acting on the public’s interest in speedy justice. See Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 523, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 2188, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). Both the power of Congress to constitute inferior federal courts in which may be vested some or all of the judicial power of the United States, U.S.Const.Art. I, § 8, cl. 9, and the power to make laws deemed “necessary and proper” to the execution of § 8 powers vested in Congress, id. Art. I, § 8, cl. 18, would appear to authorize Congress to enact laws, such as the dismissal sanction, to enforce the time limits of the Speedy Trial Act.
Once it is established that trial rights are a proper subject of legislation, the question becomes whether the particular provisions of the Speedy Trial Act intrude upon the zone of judicial self-administration to such a degree as to “preventf ] the [judiciary] from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions.” We do not think that the Act’s impact upon the courts can fairly be described in such extreme terms. First, the Act qualifies its mandatory dismissal sanction for untimeliness by providing that the court may dismiss without prejudice, subject to certain criteria specified in the Act. 18 U.S.C. § 3162(a)(2). Second, the Act excludes certain unavoidable delays from computation in the determination of speedy trial deadlines. Id. § 3161(h). Third, the Act excludes from the statutory periods delay resulting from a continuance granted by the trial court upon a finding “that the ends of justice served by [the continuance] outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.” Id. § 3161(h)(8)(A). To be sure, the latter authority cannot be exercised “because of general congestion of the court’s calendar,” id. § 3161(h)(8)(C) (emphasis added), but arguably it is available for resolving specific, temporary scheduling conflicts if the ends of justice so require. Finally, the Act permits the judicial council of a circuit to suspend the time limits imposed by the Act when a district court, “due to the status of its court calendars,” cannot meet the time constraints by the efficient use of existing resources. Id. § 3174.
As noted above, the district court indicated that it could not meet the time limits [699]*699prescribed by the Act without rescheduling a complex antitrust suit, at great inconvenience to the parties, the witnesses, and the court. The record, however, does not indicate when the antitrust case began or ended. Defendant in the instant case was tried without a jury on a stipulation of facts. The trial was over in a matter of minutes, and the record does not exclude the possibility that it could have been held during a regular or special recess in the antitrust suit without unduly disrupting that trial or violating the requirements of the Speedy Trial Act.
Moreover, we take notice of the fact that the District of Maryland is a multi-judge court. It does not appear of record that no other judge of that court could have tried Brainer within the seventy-day period mandated by the Act. Even in a district court, which employs an individual calendar system, “all judges must share responsibility for the prompt disposition of criminal eases, must employ a team approach to those cases, and, when necessary, must reassign them in order that they may be tried according to the commands of the Sixth Amendment and Criminal Rules 48(b) and 50.” Hodges v. United States, 408 F.2d 543, 551-52 (8 Cir. 1969) (Blackmun, Circuit Judge). See also United States v. Fay, 505 F.2d 1037, 1041 (1 Cir. 1974); United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487, 496 (1 Cir. 1970). These comments are equally applicable to the district courts’ duty under the Speedy Trial Act.
C. Summary.
To summarize, we hold the Act constitutional both on its face and as applied. We do not foreclose the possibility that the time constraints and dismissal sanction of the Act could, in an extreme case, “prevent[] the [judiciary] from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned functions.” Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. at 443, 97 S.Ct. at 2790. In light of the several safety-valves provided by the Act, that possibility would appear to be remote. In any event, this is not such a case.
IV.
From what we have said, it follows that Brainer’s conviction cannot stand because the indictment against him should have been dismissed. By 18 U.S.C. § 3162, however, the district court has discretion, after considering the statutorily prescribed criteria, to dismiss with or without prejudice and thus to determine if Brainer may be prosecuted anew. The case must therefore be returned to the district court to make this determination.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.