To the French monarch Louis XIV he was known as the sun kingthus, with a capital letter and all its absolutist pomp. Strictly speaking, that title, however, belongs to another person, and it is not even the priest king. Cuahtemocgreat governor of the Aztecs, nor the Egyptian emperor Amenhotep III. If there is a lady and sovereign of the Star King—or at least that is what she maintains—that is Angeles Durana Galician who one fine day in 2010 decided to do something that no one else had done in thousands of years of human history: she left her house in Salvaterra do Miño, in the Vigo region, and stood in the office of a notary to draw up an official record that she, and no one else but her, declared herself the legitimate and authentic owner of the sun.
When the good notary heard her, he couldn’t help but laugh, but he had no choice but to consult with his professional association and, in fact, sign a record of what that lady said. Since then, the story of Ángeles Durán has taken on delirious overtones, worthy of a good astro-legal thriller.I solicited.
I, owner of the Sun
This is how Ángeles Durán has proclaimed herself, a Galician who in 2010 surprised the world by proclaiming herself the owner of the Sun. And no, we are not speaking figuratively. The news advanced it in its day The Voice of Galiciawhich recounted how Durán went to a notary in a neighboring town, in the Vigo region, to draw up a record that she was the legitimate owner of the axis of the Solar System. If that became news—and it did, so much so in fact that it jumped to foreign media— it was not so much because of the occurrence itself as because of the result. Durán left the office with a document that he later did not hesitate to use. pose for the cameras.
“I am the owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, which is located in the center of the solar system, located at an average distance from the Earth of approximately 149,600,000 kilometers…”, proclaims the minutes of statements with the notary’s seal. The Galician newspaper explains that the official made him laugh upon hearing Durán’s claims, but he still consulted with his school and ended up attesting that the woman in front of him declared herself the legitimate possessor of the Sun.
Since then many things have been said about Durán: that he is lawyer and psychologistwho at that time served as judicial expert and even, as published The Voice in 2022, who lives in Italy and is focused on preparing a book about the British royal family. One of the latest news that is known about her is that she is dedicated to composing “spicy and erotic songs” and who has released an album.
What there is no doubt is that Durán dedicated time and effort to planning her strategy to proclaim herself the owner of the Sun. Whether more or less correct, the undeniable thing is that her request was based on a legal argument that she raised at the time and still maintained in 2019. before the cameras of Cuatro.
Going back to Roman law
The Galician law basically rested on two legs: a legal vacuum and a legal figure that dates back to Roman law. The first is related to the international agreement that establishes that no country can appropriate the planets. The key for Durán is in that nuance: that it affects the states would not imply, he maintains, that it extends to individuals.
The second key is the usucapionwhich allows you to gain real rights to those elements that have been enjoyed for a certain time. And Durán had decades benefiting daily from the Sun’s rays. Like the other almost 8,000 million people who reside on this wide planet, true, but no one else had thought to raise it like this in a notary office.
The law is made, the trap is made. At least that’s what Durán thought. “I have not bought the Sun because no one has sold it to me. What I have done is a deed for what is called usucapion,” I insisted in 2019 during an interview in which he assured that this figure can be used “by electromagnetic apprehension.”
The truth is that Durán has not been the first to do something similar. Decades ago an American businessman, Dennis Hopeclaimed that he had found a legal loophole that allowed him to claim sovereignty of the Moon. His argument was very similar to that of the Galician: Hope was based on an old law from the 19th century, of the American pioneers, and that the Outer Space Treaty It does not affect individuals.
The most curious thing is that the Sun is not the only property that Durán has claimed, although it is certainly the one that takes the cake in size, implications and impact. The Galician has made other equally curious visits to the General Registry of Intellectual Property. The World and The Country They have echoed how he came to record Tarzan’s cry or “the longest score in the world”, 24,000 million measures and related to telephony.
“Every time you dial a number, notes are ringing and no one has recorded them,” explained in 2010: “If you mark 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you are making a few measures and all the possible combinations, all of them, I have registered in my name.”
A little plot in the sun…
Durán was not satisfied with proclaiming herself the owner of the Astro Rey. He decided to go one step further, cutting up the vast expanse of the star and selling plots on eBay. On the first day he managed to market nearly a hundred stellar plots. According to explained in his day10,000 solar portions were offered, each accompanied by its respective certificate. For one euro, anyone could get a piece of star. It may not seem like much, but it’s not bad at all when you take into account that the Sun has a diameter of 1.4 million of km.
eBay was not convinced by the splitting and sale of the star and ended up blocking the sale. So he reported it At least Durán, who, convinced of her arguments, took the American online commerce giant to court. and demanded 10,000 euros. There is no record of whether the judge on duty had a reaction similar to that of the Galician notary who registered the Sol, but the case It ended up in the Court of First Instance 5 of Alcobendas. The demand was admitted for processing and at least in July 2015 Both parties had not reached an agreement in the conciliation act, so they were doomed to face each other months later in court. Excelsior assures that the court ended up dismissing his case.
The legal soap opera could end there, but the story of Ángeles Durán and his alleged ownership of the Sun still gave rise to a few more chapters. When telling his story in 2010 to The Voice The Galician woman let it slip that one of the possibilities she had was to charge a fee for the use of solar energy, a fee of which, she assured, only 10% would be kept. The rest would go to public coffers and be dedicated to purposes with a social focus.
“If you pay for the rivers, why not for this?” I was reflecting. In 2022 and after all the commotion generated, he assured that he would never threatened to collect taxes to citizens and that the scenario “in which he was working” focused on electricity companies. That did not stop media outlets from echoing his case. The Telegraph, Clarion, time, CBS News, Washington Post either Daily Mail.
Again, it is not the end of Durán’s soap opera.
The Sun can be enormous, extremely important, unique, key to the Solar System, but if it is considered in terms of property it is the same as any plot of land: it implies rights, but also responsibilities. And it is to the latter that a citizen appealed in 2015 he denounced to the Galician woman for the injuries caused by the Sun. “I have red eyes and burns, I went to the emergency room, I have photos to prove it. I will try to reach an agreement or I will go to court,” warned.
Durán’s response is also in line with that of many other people in lawsuits over property responsibilities, although in his case the dimension was quite much greater: the fault was not his, Durán maintained, but that of his neighbor. “People think they can complain to me but the Sun is not to blame for cancer, it is the pollution that destroys the ozone layer. By the same logic, I could ask them for compensation for the food they eat,” emphasized.
Image | Timon Studler (Unsplash)
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*An earlier version of this article was published in November 2023
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