The hiring fissures of Sílvia Orriols' daughter

BarcelonaAliança Catalana began the week with morale sky-high after a poll by El Periódico placed it as the second force in the upcoming parliamentary elections. However, the Islamophobic party ends the week with a new controversy related to its management of the Ripoll mayor's office, which has put it in the eye of the storm: the hiring of Sílvia Orriols' daughter as an interim local police officer. The controversy now revolves not around whether her daughter, Guinadell, had the merits for the position, but rather whether the procedure offered sufficient guarantees of impartiality in the face of a potential conflict of interest.

"I have absolutely abstained from participating in anything that affects the process." In this way, Orriols argued during the plenary session this week that she abstained from the procedure and did not intervene in the evaluation of the candidates. Municipal decrees demonstrate that the mayor did sign acts related to the call, such as the approval of the process's bases (with a practical test and an interview) and the appointment of the tribunal, made up of a sergeant and two corporals from the local police. And the law on the legal regime of the public sector establishes that in case of having a close relationship or kinship, the political official must withdraw from the call.

Therefore, for a public official to intervene in any phase when there is a conflict of interest may violate the duty of abstention and, where appropriate, lead to the challenge of the process or administrative responsibilities. It should be emphasized that the mayor intervened in the process when she already knew that her daughter was a candidate for the position because the call opened on June 11 and she signed the mayoral decree on June 30, which resolved key elements of the selection process. Paradoxically, the decree appointing Guinadell Orriols, which was made public on July 17, unlike the decree that established the selection process, is not signed by the mayor, but by the councilor delegated for the General Administration area, Gaspar Viñas.

Given all this, the professor of administrative law at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Josefa Montero, is categorical: "If she knew her daughter was participating, she should have recused herself to avoid invalidating the entire process." The appointment of the tribunal is, in her opinion, the main point of contention: "The tribunal cannot be made up of members of a corps that are under the command of the mayoress, and staff from other administrations should have been incorporated to guarantee impartiality." "In all processes affecting the local police, the three members of the tribunal are always three commanders from the corps, therefore, there has been no intention to benefit anyone as the opposition insinuates," defended Orriols. Montero recalls that Catalan regulations establish that there must be five and that there must be at least one representative from the School of Police of Catalonia and one representative from the Directorate General of Citizen Security. She also downplays article 23.4 of the same law, which states that the fact that "an authority does not recuse herself does not automatically imply that all acts are null" and that "the validity of the acts must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis." "If it is a merit-based competition and the tribunal does not influence, the procedure is not altered, but in the interview, if there is discretion, it can be a relevant element to invalidate the procedure," argues Montero.

The City Council justified the appointment due to an "unavoidable need" to reinforce the Local Police. Thus, Orriols alleged "an understaffing of personnel" – there are approximately seventeen officers for a population of about 10,600 inhabitants – which, according to the council, compromised the efficient provision of the service. In this scenario, legislation allows, in certain circumstances, the appointment of interim officials when there is an urgent and unavoidable need.

The opposition, on the other hand, emphasizes that the ordinary process to fill the position had been halted for about six months before being reactivated and that if it was such an urgent need, it is difficult to explain why the process was not accelerated when there were two positions that became vacant more than a year ago. Furthermore, the emergency call was activated on the same day that the ordinary process resumed, a fact that has fueled suspicions about the advisability of resorting to this route because it coexisted with other ordinary selection processes that were progressing more slowly. The opposition maintains that, even if the lack of officers was real, the sequence of events requires a particularly rigorous examination of the justification for the urgency.

The Secretariat department, as well as the legal services of the Ripoll City Council, issued statements this Thursday to defend the selection process and assured that the procedure has been processed with "scrupulous observance of current regulations and the constitutional principles of access to public employment". Furthermore, it concluded that the principles of "equality, merit, capacity, and publicity" have been respected.

Be that as it may, the action has raised legitimate doubts about institutional exemplary conduct because in situations of possible conflict of interest, it is often expected that the political leader takes all necessary measures to avoid any appearance of favoritism. This does not equate, however, to stating that there is proven irregularity or illegality. The fact that he attended the plenary session wearing a Local Police t-shirt did not serve to reduce the reproaches from the rest of the parties who accuse him of nepotism.

The municipal government did not inform the rest of the groups that one of the positions would be for his daughter and Orriols only gave explanations once the controversy was already public. "The day of the plenary session, just as some media outlets entered, they published it and the mayoress brought up the issue right at the start," say opposition sources, who until then had only heard rumors around town until the secretary confirmed it to them privately on June 15 in an extraordinary plenary session for the neighborhood plan. Neither in the spokespersons' meeting nor in the informative commissions did Orriols say anything either, according to the same sources. "In fact, in the spokespersons' meeting, the secretary and the comptroller informed that the incorporation of two police officers had been approved, but did not give their names, unlike other positions where their names were given," they reveal.

Orriols' appearance the day after the plenary session before the media without allowing questions and her subsequent tweets demonstrate the mayoress's nervousness, who has gone so far as to say that if she wanted to plug her in, she would put her "in an office and not on the street fighting criminals, drunks, and terrorists."