Kali­fa Clyne

Hours be­fore Cheryl Miller was re­leased fol­low­ing a High Court or­der yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said the union was pre­pared to go as far as the Ap­peal Court and the Privy Coun­cil if they were not sat­is­fied with the out­come of the court mat­ter.

Duke said this min­utes af­ter a writ of habeas cor­pus was served on Med­ical Chief of Staff at the St Ann's Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal, Dr Ian Hy­po­lite. At around 10 am, Duke ac­com­pa­nied by Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and at­tor­ney Fitzger­ald Hinds and of­fi­cers from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion en­tered the hos­pi­tal with a writ of habeas cor­pus grant­ed on Thurs­day night by Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram.

The writ re­quired Miller to be pre­sent­ed to Jus­tice Kokaram yes­ter­day af­ter­noon where he would de­ter­mine the rea­son for her ap­pre­hen­sion and de­ten­tion. "The fact is she has been em­ployed for 19 years and she has nev­er been ad­mit­ted to a men­tal in­sti­tu­tion, nor does she take drugs. Why are they shoot­ing drugs in her veins? Why have they ad­mit­ted her?" Duke asked.

He said the is­sue was not mere­ly one of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights but al­so an em­ploy­er-em­ploy­ee re­la­tion­ship. He said the PSA wants Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Gen­der Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment San­dra Jones to an­swer to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Hinds con­grat­u­lat­ed Miller's co-work­ers, say­ing that it was their cries which led to the pub­lic out­rage on Miller's be­half. "All the facts are not yet known but at any rate Miller's fam­i­ly were keen to have her in their com­pa­ny at home and we have tried to se­cure that," he said.

On March 30, Miller was re­moved from her of­fice and tak­en to the St Ann's Hos­pi­tal where she was ad­mit­ted and re­mained up to yes­ter­day.