From prosecuting thefts at all hours to heading the Anti-Fraud Office

BarcelonaIf his name makes it through to the vote in the Catalan Parliament next week, Judge Josep Tomàs Salàs will soon leave judicial sentencing for the directorship of the Anti-Fraud Office. Until now, he has been the delegate for the criminal courts of Barcelona, ​​and among his former colleagues are four judges whom he himself mentored when they were preparing for their competitive examinations. In fact, those close to him say he would have dedicated more time to teaching were it not for the 75-hour annual limit that judges must adhere to. Salàs, 64, has said that if he leads the Anti-Fraud Office, he will be a "discreet" leader—he doesn't have social media accounts nor any interest in having them—and his profile represents a continuation of the approach taken by the current director of the Anti-Fraud Office, Miguel Ángel Gimeno, with whom he worked closely when he was Gimeno's chief of staff during his presidency of the High Court of Justice. Salàs prepared for his first competitive examinations while doing his military service. In 1984, he entered the justice system as a court officer. While working, he studied law and then practiced as a lawyer for twelve years. Those close to him recall that during this period he was "more financially successful than professionally fulfilled," as he handled, among other things, insurance and compensation claims. He eventually decided to prepare for new competitive examinations to return to the administration, this time as a legal advisor.

After only a year and a half working as a legal advisor, he entered the judiciary through the fourth track system: a route with very few reserved positions that allows experienced lawyers to attain the rank of magistrate. His first posting was in the courts serving both Manresa and Vic, where for approximately a year he primarily dealt with drivers accused of drunk driving.

In October 2010, the now outgoing director of Antifrau, Miguel Ángel Gimeno, was elected to preside over the TSJC and appointed Salàs to be his chief of staff. Even then, Salàs had a close relationship with Gimeno—as he also has with the current president of the TSJC, Mercè Caso—and those close to him describe it as a bittersweet period: he appreciated the institutional work, which allowed him to gain in-depth knowledge of the administration of justice and be in contact with judges from all over the country, but he felt...

Salàs could have stayed at the TSJC on the team of the next president of the court, Jesús María Barrientos, but he declined because he preferred to return to writing judgments. From April 2016 until now, at Criminal Court No. 22 in Barcelona, ​​he has been judging petty theft cases. It's such repetitive work that he keeps the judgments classified by codes, knowing that, sooner or later, he will have an identical case in front of him in which he can reuse a good part of the document. He has also handled some high-profile cases, such as the assault on the headquarters of Catalunya Ràdio in... October 2017 by a group of radical Spanish nationalists who had demonstrated against independence. He also tried altercations during the protests against the eviction of Can Vies and during demonstrations for and against independence on October 12th, but one of the days he saw the most cameras in the courtroom was when he tried one of the cases related to the marriage between Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida and the businessman Javier Rigau.