Spain names new justice minister after Gallardon resignation

The Spanish government has confirmed Rafael Catala Polo as the new Justice Minister following the resignation of Alberto Ruiz Gallardon.

A former Mayor of Madrid, Gallardon announced his resignation from the cabinet and also confirmed he would be abandoning politics on Tuesday afternoon after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy confirmed the government had dropped its controversial abortion reform earlier in the day, as he was on the point of departing for China.

Given that Gallardon had been one of the main promoters of the abortion bill, which would have severely limited women's possibilities of having an abortion, taking rights back to what they had been in the early 1980's the now former minister decided to abandon his post.

Catala Polo is the current Secretary of State for Infrastructures, Transport and Housing in the Ministry of Public Works and will take up his new role early next week after Rajoy has returned from China and King Felipe VI has come back to Spain from New York.

He was born in Madrid in 1961 and was Secretary of State under Jose Maria Aznar between 2002 and the government's election defeat in 2004.