PSC and ERC agree that magistrate Josep Tomàs Salas will be the new director of Antifrau

BarcelonaA pact between the PSC and ERC has cleared the way for the new director of the Anti-Fraud Office. Both parliamentary groups proposed Judge Josep Tomàs Salas for the position on Tuesday at the Parliament's governing board, replacing Miguel Ángel Gimeno, whose term expired this September. This Thursday, the Catalan judge will appear before the committee on institutional affairs to explain his proposal before being voted on by the full Parliament, where it is expected that the majority that supported the investiture, including the Comuns party, will approve the nomination. Salas was a close collaborator of Gimeno when the latter was president of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).

To become the new director of the Antifraud Office, the support of three-fifths of the members of parliament is required in the first vote, that is, 81 members. However, if this is not achieved, a second vote would be held in which only an absolute majority of votes would be necessary, the 68 members of parliament from the majority that supported Salvador's investiture. Government spokesperson Silvia Paneque defended the selection of the new director, made "at the proposal of the president," which must be submitted to the "parliamentary process." "He is a suitable candidate, and it will be Parliament that defines and expresses its opinion on this matter," she emphasized, adding that there is a "majority" that can endorse him. Although the proposal was mandated to be made by the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, Josep Tomàs Salas's name was put forward with an agreement between the PSC and ERC parties. According to the Socialists, the name was communicated to the main parliamentary groups, including Junts.

However, the Junts party has sent a letter to the president lamenting that the proposal came without "any consensus with the main opposition party": "It hasn't even opened a real space for negotiation on a decision of this magnitude," lamented the parliamentary group's president, Mònica Sales, at the mass. In any case, the spokesperson in the chamber, Salvador Vergés, made it clear at a press conference that Junts' unease is not "with the name," but with "the methods" of the executive. Meanwhile, the leader of Comuns in the Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, stated that they will wait for the magistrate's appearance before deciding how to vote. "The name and CV were leaked to various parliamentary groups [...] Junts has decided to practice a flat-rate opposition," retorted the president of the PSC parliamentary group, Ferran Pedret.

Salas' profile

Josep Tomàs Salas Darrocha, head of Criminal Court No. 22 in Barcelona, ​​has had a distinguished career since December 2010, when he was appointed head of the section supporting the presidency of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), then headed by Miguel Ángel Gimeno, until now the director of the Anti-Fraud Office. Salas was, therefore, a collaborator of the progressive judge, demonstrating a clear continuity of policies. With nearly two decades of judicial experience, Salas has been the presiding judge in some significant recent rulings, such as the one in which he convicted those responsible for the attack on the Catalunya Ràdio headquarters on October 27, 2017. The attack was carried out by a group of radical Spanish nationalists who unexpectedly threw stones at the newsroom and subjected the vandals to heavy blows. Salas Darrocha sentenced one man to a fine of over one thousand euros and ordered him to pay 4,333 euros in compensation to the Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media (CCMA).

He also decided that the anti-fascists accused of assaulting a group of neo-Nazis on October 12, 2013, would not go to prison, with a 2018 ruling in which he acquitted three young people of all charges and sentenced three others to six months in prison—something that makes prison time—with the aggravating circumstances of treachery and ideological motives.

Salas will have to face the parliamentary hearing, with his judicial experience as his calling card. In the academic field, as a jurist, he addressed economic crimes, although his doctoral thesis dealt with crimes against unborn beings under the title ofThe crime of causing injury to the fetus, published in 2007. She has also recently given talks on road safety offenses, one of the issues that flood the courts, as well as thefts, one of the crimes that judges have to deal with the most.