End of interim. More than a year after the resignation of Esther Andreu, the Parliament will once again have a secretary general. It will be Albert Capelleras, proposed for the position this Monday by the president of the institution, Anna Erra, at the Board meeting, ahead of his traditional Tuesday appointment.
Anna Erra has announced in person, after the meeting of the governing body of the Chamber, her decision, which puts an end to the interim term of Miquel Palomares, who, as senior lawyer, had performed the functions of secretary general since May of last year, when the dismissal of the general secretary appointed by Laura Borràs as a result of the controversial hiring of her son as an usher.
Albert Capelleras (Barcelona, 1965) has a degree in Law from the University of Barcelona and in Political Science and Sociology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and has completed a doctorate in Public Law at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He has been a lawyer for the Parliament since last March, where he arrived from the Sindicatura de Comptes after having previously passed through the legal cabinet of the Presidency and having served as director of the Office of the Government.
The appointment, which will be made official with the publication in the Official Bulletin of the Parliament of Catalonia (BOPC), has been produced by the consent of the rest of the members of the Board, and after Erra chose Capelleras from among all the members of the body of lawyers from the Parliament, based on a series of interviews after which he considered that his profile was the most appropriate, taking into account his "personal conditions and his background", since "professionalism" is -Erra highlighted- a shared characteristic by all the lawyers of the Chamber.
Erra herself has explained in an informal meeting with journalists after the meeting that with this designation she complied with her announcement, made upon taking office, to end the interim position of the general secretary. Likewise, the president of Parliament thanked Palomares for his work in assuming the functions of general secretary in recent months and has stated that he will continue to perform the functions of senior lawyer of the Chamber.
As stated in the regulations, the Secretary General of the Parliament, under the direction of the Presidency and the Bureau, is the superior head of all the staff and of all the services of the Parliament and fulfills the technical support and advisory functions of the governing bodies of the legislative headquarters, assisted by lawyers.
Since the reestablishment of Parliament in 1980, the following have been general secretaries (senior officers in the old denomination, until 2006): Robert Vergés (1980-1981), Ismael Pitarch (1981-1999), Imma Folchi (1999-2015), Pere Sol (2015-2016), Xavier Muro (2016-2021), Esther Andreu (2021-2022) and Miquel Palomares, who has assumed the functions from 2022 until now.
