The person in charge of the Generalitat's centers for minors resigns

BarcelonaThe director of Juvenile Justice, Jesús del Cacho, has resigned after two years in the position. The Government appointed the new director, criminal lawyer Paz Vallès, this very Tuesday.

Sources from the Department of Justice disconnect the change in the team from last week's crime in Manresa, for which two minors have been arrested, both with criminal records. One of them was on probation at the time of the crime for an attempted homicide in April, for which he had been preventively interned until a few weeks ago in a juvenile justice center. In fact, the same sources assure that the decision had been made since August 31st and was proposed by Del Cacho himself, who announced his resignation upon returning from vacation.

Del Cacho arrived at the department in September 2024. Born in Huesca in 1961, he has been a judge since 1997 and has practiced in Igualada, Tortosa, Ceuta, and Lleida. From 2005 until he joined the department, he had held the position of magistrate at the juvenile court of Tarragona, where he will now return.

Paz Vallès

As for Paz Vallès, she has been practicing as a lawyer since 2011, and has been working at the firm Molins Defensa Penal since 2014. Among the cases she has handled is the defense of the Guàrdia Urbana officer who was acquitted last year for having shot and wounded a homeless person on Passeig Sant Joan in 2020. She also took charge, six years ago, of representing the female firefighters of Barcelona who demanded that a colleague who had been caught and convicted for filming them in the locker room not be allowed to return to work.

Vallès was also part of the governing board of the Barcelona Bar Association (Icab) from 2021 to 2025, and chaired the commission on digital transformation, the commission on relations with the administration of justice, and the commission on drugs. She has also participated as an independent expert in the working group on multi-recidivism of the Barcelona City Council, designing the pilot plan to offer legal assistance to victims of repeat offenders.