José María Romero de Tejada

José María Romero de Tejada Gómez (15 August 1948 – 27 November 2017), was a Spanish conservative jurist who was the Attorney General of Catalonia from 2013 until his death in 2017.

This article uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Romero de Tejada and the second or maternal family name is Gómez.

José María Romero de Tejada
Attorney General of Catalonia
In office July 2013 – 27 November 2017
Preceded by	Martín Rodríguez Sol
Succeeded by	Francisco Bañeres Santos
Personal details
Born	(1948-08-15)15 August 1948 Barcelona, Spain
Died	27 November 2017(2017-11-27) (aged 69) Barcelona, Spain
Cause of death	pneumonia and leukemia
Nationality	Spanish

Biography and career

Born in Barcelona, Romero de Tejada studied law at the University of Barcelona between 1965 and 1970, where he continued teaching as a teacher. When he was 25 years old he entered the judicial school and the first destination was Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. In September 1974, he began work at the Public Prosecutor of Barcelona, where he was a deputy prosecutor of the Superior Court of Justice of Barcelona. In the 80s, he was positioned in favor of the actions of the then anti-corruption prosecutor Carlos Jiménez Villarejo in the Banca Catalana case.

He was appointed top fiscal of Catalonia in July 2013, after the Attorney General of the State forced to resign Martín Rodríguez Sol because he defended the celebration of the 2014 Catalan self-determination referendum.[1]

By order of Eduardo Torres-Dulce, the Attorney General of Spain, filed the complaint that led Judgment against Artur Mas, former President of the Generalitat of Catalonia; Joana Ortega, former vice president of the government of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Irene Rigau, former Minister of Education, for 9-N. This happened in the moment when the Catalan prosecutors, in extraordinary meeting, had considered that it did not have to be filled.[2]

Spanish constitutional crisis

On September 23, 2017, Romero de Tejada placed the Lieutenant Colonel, Diego Pérez de los Cobos Orihuel, as the head of the State security forces and bodies in Catalonia, including the Mossos d'Esquadra – in parallel to Operation Anubis – when the Spanish government tried to restrain the self-determination referendum on October 1.[3] On September 25, he ordered the Mossos to go to all polling stations in search of ballot boxes and to warn their perpetrators that it was a crime to cede those locales.[4] Moreover, he presented complaints to the High Court of Justice of Catalonia against the President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, and his Government, and against the Bureau of Parliament for the sovereignty process. He communicated to Major of the Mossos, Josep Lluís Trapero Álvarez this instruction, who acted quickly.[5]

Death

Romero de Tejada died on 27 November 2017 from leukemia, aggravated by pneumonia, at the age of 69 in a hospital in Barcelona.[6] Coincidentally, his death occurred just nine days after the sudden death of the Attorney General of Spain, José Manuel Maza.

See also

• Judiciary of Spain
• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
• Operation Anubis

References

1. Jose María Romero de Tejada toma posesión como nuevo fiscal superior de Catalunya (in Spanish)
2. Torres Dulce impone a los fiscales catalanes la querella contra Mas (in Spanish)
3. L'Estat espanyol vol posar al capdavant dels Mossos el germà de l'expresident del Tribunal Constitucional Archived 2017-09-24 at the Wayback Machine (in Catalan)
4. El fiscal ordena a los Mossos que acudan a todos los colegios electorales en busca de urnas (in Spanish)
5. Trapero acata la orden del fiscal, pero cuestiona la tutela del ministerio (in Spanish)
6. Muere el fiscal superior de Catalunya José María Romero de Tejada a los 69 años (in Spanish)