The fact that Councilor Juli Fernández was not a protagonist in the Esquerra Republicana event in Sabadell, in his city, in the campaign for the municipal elections last May was symptomatic, especially considering that he had been mayor of the Vallesana co-capital. The head of the Territory, the only member of the Executive Council with a deputation of the Parliament apart from President Pere Aragones, will leave the Catalan Executive this week and will be replaced by Ester Capella (La Seu d'Urgell, 1963), current Government delegate of the Generalitat in Madrid.
Capella, who was Minister of Justice in the previous legislature, returns to the Catalan Executive. It will do so, as happened in its previous stage, with burning issues in its portfolio such as the Ronda del Vallès that must unite Terrassa, Sabadell and Castellar del Vallès, as agreed between the PSC and ERC in this year's Catalan budget agreement. The circumstance arises that Fernàndez, who came to the Executive in October after the departure of Junts from the Government, was against the infrastructure and had meant a lot about it, but his party ended up assuming it to carry out the accounting of the Generalitat with the Socialists .
The ERC leader, considered by the party in recent years as an upward value, obtained the act of councilor in Barcelona for the list of Ernest Maragall, but will not collect it this Saturday in the constitution of the City Council. Between 2007 and 2011 Capella had already been a councilor in the Catalan capital, she reached the Republican lists as an independent and since 2008 she has a party card from Oriol Junqueras.
Beyond the Ronda del Vallès, pending an agreement on financing and layout between the central administration and the Government of Aragonès, there will be other issues on the table such as the constant demand for a comprehensive transfer of Rodalies that includes management, infrastructure and financing of the service and, if the powers that Fernàndez had are maintained, the powers in matters of housing, which at the beginning of the legislature depended on the Ministry of Social Rights.
Before being a councilor, Capella, a Law graduate, had been a senator by regional designation first, between 2013 and 2016, and a congressional deputy, from 2016 until her appointment as head of Justice in June 2018 in the Quim executive Torra, picking up, after a few months of impasse, the baton of Carles Mundó, who was dismissed in October 2017 for the application of article 155 of the Constitution, after the 1-O referendum.
Her stage as councilor, which lasted three years, until May 2021, coincided with the trial of the leaders of the process in the Supreme Court and their subsequent conviction, as well as with various cases related to 1-O in the investigation and trial phase. trial in the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). Likewise, it was marked by the granting of the third degree to the imprisoned independentitas leaders – whom she visited every week in Madrid while they were there given her status as a lawyer –, or the endorsement of the prison system at the time they were in Lledoners, with the application of article 100.2 of the regulation –which allows you to go out to work for a few hours–. Shortly after she left the Government, they were granted a pardon, in June 2021. In addition to powers in prison matters and being the liaison with justice in Catalonia, she was also involved in matters of historical memory.
Before taking the step to institutional politics, the ERC leader, who had been a practicing criminal lawyer since 1988, was the president of the Catalan Association of Democratic Jurists from 2003 to 2007.
In addition, in 2011, after her first stint at Barcelona City Council and before being appointed senator, she was in charge of managing the Barcelona Municipal Institute for People with Disabilities, a position she left in 2013 along with that of councilor when she was appointed senator. on behalf of Parliament.
