Juan Alberto Belloch (born 1950) is a Spanish judge and socialist politician, who served in different cabinet posts. He served as the mayor of Zaragoza between June 2003 and 13 June 2015.
Belloch worked as a judge in the Basque county.[1] He is the founder of the Judges for Democracy and was an active member of the organization until 1990.[2] He also established the association for human rights in 1984.[1] He served as the president of the provincial court of Vizcaya.[3] In 1990, he was appointed a member of the general council of the judiciary.[1]
Belloch is a member of Spain's Socialist Party.[4] On 14 July 1993 he was appointed justice minister in a cabinet reshuffle and became part of the cabinet led by the prime minister Felipe Gonzalez.[5] However, he was an independent member of the cabinet.[1] He served in the post until 6 May 1996.[3][6]
He was also appointed interior minister on 5 May 1994, replacing Antoni Asunción Hernández in the post,[7][8][9] who resigned from office in late April 1994.[10] Therefore, both justice ministry and interior ministry were headed by Belloch.[10] His attempts to clean the ministry of interior led to the discovery of the GAL affair which triggered the trial and arrest of the former interior minister José Barrionuevo.[7] The affair then was searched by an inquiry committee in the Spanish senate and following the inquiry it was dissolved.[7] Belloch was in office until 6 May 1996 and was succeeded by Jaime Mayor Oreja in the post.[6] He became a member of the Spanish parliament in 1996, representing Zaragoza province. and served there until 2000.[3] Next he became a senator for Zaragoza and held the post from 2000 to 2004.[3]
After leaving office, he became a Zaragoza councilman.[11] He ran for the mayor of Zaragoza and was elected to the post in June 2003.[3][11] He was reelected for office in 2007 and in 2011.[4] In 2008, he was appointed the chairman of the association of cities and regions hosting an international exposition (AVE).[12] He attempted to make Zaragoza the European Capital of Culture for 2016.[2] His other significant activity as mayor was to make the city the host of the Winter Olympics in 2022.[2] In the municipal elections in May 2015 he lost and Pedro Santisteve was elected as the mayor of Zaragoza.[13]
