The government has proposed judge Josep Tomàs Salas Darrocha as the new director of the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia (OAC), and his appointment awaits ratification by the plenary session of Parliament next week. Esquerra and the Commons view the proposal favorably, but Junts per Catalunya has expressed its desire to block the nomination as a sign of disagreement with the methods used by the government in the election.
The proposal for the post of anti-fraud director is the responsibility of the government and requires the support of three-fifths of the entire Parliament to be approved. In the event of failure, it will be subject to a new vote which will require an absolute majority.
Currently, Salas Darrocha is the titular magistrate of Criminal Court No. 22 of Barcelona, according to the Efe agency. If the Catalan Chamber approves his appointment as head of the Anti-Fraud Office, he will have a six-year mandate.
Junts per Catalunya has made public its “deep” dissatisfaction with the way the government has handled the replacement of the current director, Miguel Ángel Gimeno. The president of the JxCat parliamentary group, Mònica Sales, expressed on Tuesday her “deep discomfort” because the government is filling “without consensus” the vacant position within the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia. Junts demanded that his nomination be postponed and that a “sincere dialogue” be opened to reach “a national agreement”.
In a letter addressed to the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, Sales regretted that the government had not consulted the “main opposition party in Parliament.”
For JxCat, this procedure “should have been exemplary in its forms, in respect of Parliament and in the desire to build large majorities”, which is why the process “did not live up to the required institutional requirements”.
The government, Sales adds in the letter, “limits itself to informing Junts ‘of a decision already made, without any desire to sit down, talk or seek any possibility of points of agreement”, which represents, in its view, “a democratic deterioration of institutions”.
During a press conference in the Catalan Chamber, JxCat’s parliamentary spokesperson, Salvador Vergés, said his party “has nothing against the name” proposed by the government, but rather the way in which it was carried out. “Illa has shown that she sees Parliament as a simple procedure and the opposition as a simple obstacle,” he said.
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