The new judges commence later this month
The British Columbia government has named Ariana Ward, James Henry, Brian Dybwad, and Mylene de Guzman as new Provincial Court judges.
Henry and Dybwad take up the posts on March 21, while Ward and de Guzman commence on March 28.
Ward brings 27 years of legal experience. She began her legal career as Crown counsel and has worked in various areas of the BC Prosecution Service since 1996.
She served as weekend bail Crown at the BCPS from 2008 to 2017 and became trial counsel in 2018. She also acted as counsel in North Vancouver’s Indigenous sentencing court. She was born in Iran and lived in the US before relocating to Canada.
Henry has served as Crown counsel since 2017. He was previously a defence counsel in Surrey and the Fraser Valley.
He commenced with the Indigenous Prosecution Service Resource Group in 2020 and was appointed administrative Crown counsel in 2022; in this role, he managed the scheduling of over 50 Surrey office prosecutors. He has Métis ancestry.
As a lawyer, Dybwad focused his practice on north Vancouver Island. He specialized in criminal defence, family law and child-protection matters from 2010 to 2018.
He was the managing lawyer of Campbell River’s Parents Legal Centre from 2018 to 2022. As of July 2022, he has also served as the managing lawyer of Legal Aid BC. He was previously Campbell River Bar Association president from 2015 to 2017 and was elected a Law Society of British Columbia bencher in 2022 and 2024.
de Guzman concentrated on family law while practising in New Westminster and the Fraser Valley. She was accredited as a family law mediator and arbitrator in 2015.
She is the first vice-president of the Canadian Bar Association and previously led the New West Bar Association as president in 2022. She is part of Access Pro Bono, where she joins legal clinics and conducts mediations. She was born in the Philippines before moving to Ontario.
