[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] granted summary judgment [opinion, PDF] on Monday in favor of Vice President Dick Cheney [official profile; JURIST news archive], giving Cheney broad discretion over which vice presidential records should be preserved. The lawsuit, initiated by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) [advocacy website] against Cheney and the Executive Office of the President [official website], alleges that Bush administration is illegally trying to keep certain records from the public. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly [official profile] ruled that the plaintiffs were not entitled relief under the Presidential Record Act (PRA) [44 U.S.C. § 2201 et seq. text]. The court found that:

Plaintiffs argue throughout their submissions to the Court that the Presidential Records Act should not be read to vest broad discretion in the Vice President to handle the preservation of his own records during his term in office without the possibility of judicial oversight. The Court is nevertheless bound to apply the Presidential Records Act as Congress enacted it, which provides only narrow areas of oversight relating to the Vice President’s document preservation decisions.

To the extent that this lawsuit highlights any unintended consequences stemming from the Presidential Records Act, Plaintiffs’ remedy lies with Congress and not this Court.