Chief Judge Melissa Gillespie has announced the appointment of three new judges and one new judicial justice. 

It is my great pleasure and privilege to announce that the Lieutenant Governor in Council has signed Orders in Council appointing three judges to the Provincial Court and one judicial justice. The new judge appointments are Christopher Balison, Dennis Isaac Ferbey, and Aamna Afsar. The new judicial justice appointment is Patrick Angly.

Judge Balison 

Judge Balison will be sworn in on May 1, 2025. He will be assigned to the Interior region with chambers in Kamloops.  

Prior to his appointment, Judge Balison was the Deputy Regional Crown Counsel in Kamloops, BC, where he resides. Graduating from the University of New Brunswick in April 2006, Judge Balison articled at a law firm in Kamloops. Shortly after his call to the bar in 2007, he became Crown Counsel. 
 

Judge Ferbey 

Judge Ferbey will be sworn in on May 1, 2025. He will be assigned to the Interior region with chambers in Kelowna. 

Judge Ferbey worked as the federal prosecuting agent in the West Kootenays, primarily conducting federal prosecutions as an agent for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, since moving from the Lower Mainland. For the first ten yeas of his legal practice, Judge Ferbey lived and worked in the Surrey/Delta communities in the Lower Mainland, practicing as criminal defence counsel. He obtained his law degree at the University of Victoria in 2007, transferring there after studying at the University of Western Ontario law school [“UWO”] for one year. 
 

Judge Afsar 

Judge Afsar will be sworn in on May 1, 2025. She will be assigned to the Fraser region with chambers in Surrey. 

Judicial Justice Afsar was appointed to the BC Provincial Court as a judicial justice in July 2022. She received her common law and civil law degrees from McGill University in 2003. After practicing civil litigation with Alberta Justice for several years, she joined the BC Prosecution Service in 2006 where she worked as Crown Counsel in Vancouver for almost 14 years. In 2019, Judge Afsar joined the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) where she was an adjudicator and then a manager within the RPD’s Quality Centre. Since November 2021, she has been an Alternate Chair at the BC Review Board. 
 

Judicial Justice Angly 

Judicial Justice Angly will be sworn in on April 28, 2025 and assigned to the Justice Centre and traffic. 

Judicial Justice Angly graduated from UBC with a Bachelor of Laws in 1982, and was called to the BC Bar in May of 1983. His entire 39-year legal career has been acting as defence counsel appearing in every level of court from traffic court to the Supreme Court of Canada.