Guinadell Orriols, the 19-year-old daughter of Ripoll’s mayor Sílvia Orriols, has been appointed an interim local police officer, sparking controversy in the Catalan town. The urgent selection process put the mayor in charge of appointing the tribunal that evaluated candidates, despite regulations cited in the selection notice requiring officials to recuse themselves from hiring processes involving direct relatives.
The process began on June 11, when Ripoll’s municipal government announced an urgent call to fill a temporary police vacancy. Candidates had to be over 18 and hold a high school diploma; they also needed intermediate Catalan proficiency and a driving licence. Prior police experience counted as an advantage. Applications were open for just 12 days, and the selection used a direct process permitted by law in urgent cases.
Although the mayor publicly insisted she had not influenced the outcome, official documents show that Sílvia Orriols played a decisive role after applications closed. On June 30, she issued a decree appointing a sergeant and two corporals to the selection tribunal, setting its terms and evaluation criteria, and scheduling the tests. Signed by municipal secretary Gerard Soldevila, the decree also justified the urgency by citing a critical operational situation affecting public safety in Ripoll, a town of 10,600 residents.
During a council meeting, the mayor defended her actions, saying she had neither favored nor blocked her daughter’s candidacy. She said her daughter achieved the highest scores in all tests and that she had abstained from direct participation in the process. But the selection notice cited regulations requiring officials to recuse themselves from any stage of a hiring process involving direct relatives, fueling further debate. The tribunal’s composition also became a political point of contention: in a July 29, 2026 report, El Nacional journalist Vicenç Pagès said Orriols defended her choice of the panel as deliberate rather than random and rejected the allegation that she intended to benefit her daughter.
To address potential conflicts of interest, the final appointment decree was signed by councilor Gaspar Viñas Codina and the municipal secretary after a formal delegation of authority on July 3, the same day the five remaining candidates underwent their final interviews. The official selection result has yet to appear in the Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Girona or the Diario Oficial de la Generalitat de Cataluña, although the appointment took effect on July 17.
During the council session, the municipal secretary maintained that the urgent procedure did not require a full selection process and that no irregularities had occurred. The dispute also prompted calls to separate the mayor’s security responsibilities from the appointment process. Ferran Raigon, a Junts representative in Ripoll, called for Orriols to delegate those powers to another councillor to avoid a conflict of interest, as Pagès reported. The request was a political call for a preventive measure, not a ruling that invalidated the hiring process. The case has focused attention on transparency and the use of urgent hiring mechanisms in local administrations. Similar debates over public appointments have surfaced elsewhere in Catalonia, including during political divisions over the reappointment of the Síndic in Barcelona’s city council, detailed in this report on the city’s ombudsman selection.
Guinadell Orriols is expected to assume her new duties in the coming days. The appointment decree repeated the urgency cited in the initial call, describing the situation as one of “maximum urgency.” The case has drawn particular attention because Sílvia Orriols has often criticized institutional favoritism in the Catalan Parliament, denouncing the use of public resources for personal or party gain. Her own administration now faces scrutiny over its adherence to ethical standards in municipal hiring.
In an interview reported by La Vanguardia on October 19, 2026, Orriols rejected the opposition’s description of the appointment as irregular, saying critics “can say whatever they want” and asserting that “the irregularities do not exist.” She also argued that an allegedly independent report had been produced by someone who had spent 19 years on Junts’s payroll. Orriols said Ripoll’s municipal legal services and Aliança Catalana had rejected the accusations. Those statements reflect the mayor’s position; the controversy continues to focus on the appointment and her role in municipal security.
In Spain, urgent hiring procedures are legally permitted when impressive public services are at risk, but they are intended to be exceptional and subject to strict transparency requirements. The controversy in Ripoll highlights the challenge of meeting urgent staffing needs while avoiding conflicts of interest and preserving public trust in local institutions.
