David Sánchez, sentenced to nine years of disqualification for prevarication in his hiring at the Badajoz Provincial Council

The president of the Provincial Council is the single-person body that holds the highest institutional representation and the political and administrative direction of the province. Their basic competencies are outlined in the Law 7/1985 on the Bases of Local Regime and are developed in the Regulation on Organization, Functioning, and Legal Regime of Local Entities. In practice, they combine functions of a “provincial mayor” (government and administration) with the presidency of the Plenary and the Governing Board. Below is a summary of their main powers by functional blocks.

a) Institutional representation and political direction

According to Law 7/1985, it corresponds “in all cases” to the president of the Provincial Council to:

• Represent the Provincial Council in all kinds of acts and before other administrations and third parties.
• Preside over the Corporation and all public acts of a provincial nature (the ROF details this), with the protocol treatment established by the Regulation: excellence for Barcelona and most illustrious for the rest of the provincial councils.
• Direct the government and administration of the province, setting political priorities and strategic lines of provincial action.
• Exercise the highest personnel leadership and direction of the administrative organization, positioning them as the political and managerial apex of the institution.

This dimension makes them the highest political responsible for provincial government action, within the framework set by the Plenary.

b) Executive and government functions

At the executive level, Law 7/1985 attributes to the president, among other functions:

• Direct, inspect, and promote services and works of provincial ownership or exercise, and services of the Autonomous Community whose ordinary management has been entrusted to the Provincial Council.
• Develop economic management according to the approved budget, authorize expenses within the limits of their competence, order payments, arrange certain credit operations, and render accounts, in accordance with local treasury legislation.
• Exercise judicial and administrative actions and defend the Provincial Council in matters within its competence.

The 1986 Regulation further specifies that the president can contract and grant works, services, and supplies within certain percentage limits of the budget, preside over and award auctions and tenders, and sign deeds and policies on behalf of the Provincial Council.

c) Internal organization and personnel

Regarding organizational and internal matters, the basic rules assign very broad powers:

• Convene and preside over sessions of the Plenary, the Governing Board (Government Commission), and other provincial bodies, deciding ties with a casting vote.
• Appoint and dismiss vice presidents and members of the Governing Board.
• Highest leadership of all personnel, agreeing on their appointment and sanctions, including dismissal and termination of labor personnel, reporting to the Plenary.
• Approve the public employment offer according to the budget and staff approved by the Plenary, approve selection bases and provision contests, and distribute certain salary supplements.

Part of this regime has been coordinated with basic public employment regulations, particularly the Basic Statute of the Public Employee approved by Royal Legislative Decree 5/2015, as well as with the Consolidated Text of provisions on Local Regime, partially modified by laws such as Law 4/1996, Law 10/1993, or Law 26/1987.

d) Relations with the Plenary and the Governing Board

The president structures the relationship between collegiate bodies:

• They are the one who convenes and sets the agenda of the Plenary and the Governing Board, except for specific legal provisions.
• They must report to the Plenary on certain acts (for example, very serious personnel sanctions or exercise of judicial actions) and execute plenary agreements.
• They can receive delegations of powers from the Plenary, except for the non-delegable ones that Law 7/1985 expressly reserves, according to what is provided in the ROF.
• They preside over the Governing Board, which acts as a collegiate executive body, and coordinate its actions with the corporation’s general planning.

e) Other relevant competencies

Legislation provides other powers and complementary rules:

• Delegation of powers from the president to vice presidents or other members of the Governing Board, under terms established by local regulations.
• Action in emergency cases, convening extraordinary and urgent sessions of the Plenary or Governing Board and adopting immediate decisions within their competencies.
• Regime of election, resignation, and dismissal regulated in the ROF and electoral legislation (including motions of censure), with provision for extraordinary sessions to cover vacancies.
• Specific limits on their remuneration, set in Law 7/1985, linking the maximum salary of the president of the Provincial Council to that of the mayor or president of the most populated municipality in the province.

Overall, this configures a figure that concentrates political and organizational power, subject however to controls by the Plenary, basic state regulations — among others, Law 40/2015, the Public Sector Contracts Law of 2007, Law 7/2007, Law 34/1998, Law 31/1991, Order of May 14, 1987, Special Law of the Madrid Municipality, Law 11/1960, Law 11/1999, and Organic Law 5/1985— and, where applicable, to autonomous community regulations and provincial organic regulations.

Miguel Ángel Gallardo Miranda is a politician from Extremadura belonging to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), to which he has been affiliated since the mid-1990s. He has developed almost his entire career in local and regional politics: he was for more than two decades mayor of Villanueva de la Serena and nearly a decade president of the Provincial Council of Badajoz, then went on to lead the PSOE of Extremadura and be its candidate for the Presidency of the Regional Government. After the electoral debacle of December 2025, he resigned as regional secretary general and in January 2026 gave up his seat in the Assembly, in a context marked by his judicial situation regarding the hiring of Pedro Sánchez's brother in the Badajoz Provincial Council, according to various political and judicial chronicles, including several from Demócrata.

Biographical data and education

Various biographical sources, such as the Wikipedia entry dedicated to him and informative profiles, indicate that Miguel Ángel Gallardo was born on June 8, 1974 in Villanueva de la Serena (Badajoz), and holds a diploma in Social Education from UNED, with technical training in Electronic Maintenance and Early Childhood Education. Before fully dedicating himself to politics, he worked as a production operator in the agri-food industry (a tomato factory) in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to media such as Vozpópuli, as well as the profile of the CERI Foundation ([link]).

Beginnings in the PSOE and municipal career

Gallardo joined the PSOE and the Socialist Youth in the mid-90s. Organizationally, various biographies point out that he was local secretary general of the Socialist Youth from 1996 to 2003, and later secretary general of the PSOE in Villanueva de la Serena from 2004.

His rise to the forefront occurred in 2003, when he won the mayoralty of Villanueva de la Serena, recovering local government for the PSOE after eight years in opposition. According to the electoral analysis collected by the newspaper Demócrata in this report, he remained mayor between 2003 and 2024, chaining several absolute majorities and becoming a figure strongly identified with socialist municipalism in Extremadura.

President of the Provincial Council of Badajoz

While leading locally, Gallardo assumed in 2015 the Presidency of the Provincial Council of Badajoz, a position from which he promoted provincial development projects and was re-elected after successive municipal and provincial elections. His tenure at the head of the Provincial Council is, at the same time, the origin of the judicial case regarding the hiring of David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, brother of the Prime Minister.

On this point, several reports from Demócrata and other media place Gallardo as indicted and later prosecuted for alleged malfeasance and influence peddling, in a case related to that hiring. The case's follow-up can be seen in news such as the oral trial at the Provincial Court of Badajoz ([link]) or the ruling that partially limits the scope of the prosecution ([link] and [link]).

Leadership in the PSOE of Extremadura

After Guillermo Fernández Vara's retirement, Gallardo won the primaries of the PSOE of Extremadura and was elected regional secretary general, as detailed by media such as elEconomista and the party's own profile. From that position, he led the party in regional opposition and became president of the Socialist Parliamentary Group in the Assembly of Extremadura, engaging in parliamentary confrontations with President María Guardiola, covered by Demócrata in articles such as this Debate of the Region analysis or the chronicles of the September 2025 plenary ([link], [link]).

Candidate for the Presidency of the Regional Government and internal crisis

In autumn 2025, the Extremadura PSOE confirmed him as candidate for the Presidency of the Regional Government for the early regional elections on December 21. The designation process and party unity are covered in several Demócrata reports, such as the announcement of his candidacy without prior primaries ([link]), the unanimous ratification by the Regional Committee ([link]), and explicit support from the federal leadership, with Patxi López defending him despite his judicial situation ([link]).

However, the December 21 elections ended with the worst historical result for the PSOE in Extremadura, as detailed by Demócrata in several pieces, including one summarizing the defeat and internal criticisms ([link]) and the analysis of the upset in his own stronghold of Villanueva de la Serena ([link]). In that context, Gallardo announced his resignation as secretary general of the PSOE of Extremadura, as reported in the chronicle “Miguel Ángel Gallardo resigns as leader of the PSOE of Extremadura after the electoral collapse” ([link]), and the federal leadership appointed a caretaker committee to lead the party in the region, also mentioned in [link].

Resignation from the seat and current situation

Already in January 2026, with the trial set for February of that year — according to another Demócrata piece on the process schedule ([link]) — Gallardo decided not to take possession of the regional deputy seat and resigned from the seat, as explained in detail in two Demócrata articles: the news about his resignation letter (“Miguel Ángel Gallardo leaves his seat in the Assembly of Extremadura to take a step aside”, [link]) and complementary information about the caretaker committee’s support for that decision ([link]).

In that letter, extensively cited by Demócrata, he states that his priority is now to defend his honor in court and “recover serenity,” emphasizing that his departure is a “full stop,” leaving the door open to collaborate with the party in the future. Since then, according to regional and national press, he does not hold institutional or first-line organizational positions, although he maintains his membership in the PSOE.

Political affiliation

In summary, Miguel Ángel Gallardo belongs and has always belonged to the PSOE. He has been a leader of the organization at all levels (Youth, local group, regional federation) and a socialist candidate in the various elections in which he has run: municipal as mayor, provincial as president of the Provincial Council of Badajoz, and regional as aspirant to the Presidency of the Regional Government of Extremadura.

The available information does not allow precise identification of the specific legal requirements (procedural and substantive) to appeal a sentence from a Provincial Court before a High Court of Justice (TSJ) in civil and criminal matters. The data available refer to other areas of the constitutional and procedural system (constitutional appeal before the Constitutional Court, types of laws and their approval, and the legislative procedure), but not to ordinary or extraordinary appeals against sentences from Provincial Courts. Therefore, it is not possible to reliably detail the types of appealable resolutions, amounts, deadlines, or specific grounds. Below is a general framework of the system and the type of normative issues that can be addressed with the available information.

General framework of the constitutional and judicial system

In Spain, the challenge of decisions and norms is articulated through different channels, depending on the type of act and the body appealed to. On one hand, there is the constitutional control route before the Constitutional Court; on the other, the route of appeals within the ordinary jurisdiction (courts, courts of appeal, high courts, and Supreme Court). The question you pose clearly falls within this second block (ordinary jurisdiction), but the available information focuses mainly on the first and on the legislative field.

For example, the functioning of the constitutional appeal against laws or norms with the force of law is known. According to the information consulted, a law can be challenged before the Constitutional Court through this appeal when it is considered to violate the Constitution. Those entitled to file it are:

• The President of the Government.
• Fifty deputies or fifty senators.
• The executive collegiate bodies of the Autonomous Communities and, where applicable, their legislative Assemblies.

The general deadline to file this appeal is three months from the official publication of the law or norm with the force of law. The Constitutional Court may declare the total or partial unconstitutionality of the text, with the consequent nullity of the affected part.

Additionally, the question of constitutionality is mentioned, which is not a party appeal but a mechanism that an ordinary judge or court may raise when, in resolving a specific case, they doubt the constitutionality of a law applicable to it.

Laws and special procedures in the normative system

Information is also available on which norms require qualified majorities or special procedures in the General Courts, which helps understand the institutional weight of certain laws, although it does not resolve the question about appeals against sentences:

• Organic laws require an absolute majority of the Congress in the final vote on the entire text, as they regulate matters such as fundamental rights, statutes of autonomy, or the general electoral regime.
• Constitutional reforms have reinforced procedures: the ordinary (art. 167 CE) with three-fifths majorities and, where applicable, two-thirds; and the aggravated (art. 168 CE), with two-thirds majorities, dissolution of the Courts, and referendum.
• Statutes of Autonomy and their reforms, as well as laws on transfer or delegation of State competencies to autonomous communities, generally require an absolute majority and sometimes a referendum in the community.

This information serves to frame the distribution of competencies and normative hierarchy but does not provide the technical requirements of a specific appeal against Provincial Court sentences before a TSJ.

Limits of the available information and recommendations

Since the analyzed sources do not contain data on:

• Types of Provincial Court resolutions appealable before the TSJ in civil or criminal matters.
• Thresholds of amount or specific matters.
• Specific grounds for appeal, nor whether it is ordinary or extraordinary.
• Requirements for preparing the appeal, procedural deadlines, or party standing.

it is not possible to offer a technical and detailed response without providing unsupported information. There is no further information in the consulted sources that allows faithfully reconstructing these requirements.

If what is sought is a complete practical guide (with mention of procedural laws, exact deadlines, types of appeals, and specific grounds), the most appropriate is to directly consult the current procedural legislation (Civil Procedure Law and Criminal Procedure Law, among others) and, if applicable, a legal professional specialized in procedural law. From a political and institutional analysis perspective, it is possible to work with the consequences that TSJ judicial decisions have in public debate, in the application of regional laws, or in the relationship between powers, but the strictly technical-procedural detail exceeds the information currently available.