Commissioning Affidavits & Annexture Sealing in the Digital Era: Oaths and Statutory Declarations Act (Cap 15) Rules, Continuous Exhibit Pagination, and E-Signatures

In Kenyan motion practice—whether seeking an urgent conservatory order under Certificate of Urgency, opposing a summary judgment application, or filing a Judicial Review verifying affidavit—your entire factual case rests on the admissibility of the Supporting or Replying Affidavit and its Annextures. Under Rule 9 of the Oaths and Statutory Declarations Rules (Cap 15, Laws of Kenya), every annexture referred to in an affidavit must be securely sealed and endorsed with a serial exhibit mark signed by the Commissioner for Oaths. Unsealed, unpaginated, or loosely attached exhibits are routinely expunged from the court record on preliminary objection.

Historically, complying with Rule 9 meant printing 200 pages of exhibits, manually stamping every first page with a rubber exhibit stamp, filling in the deponent's initials and exhibit code by hand, commissioning the Jurat, and re-scanning the entire stack at 300 DPI. Today, KortiBundle (kortibundle.com) enables advocates and Commissioners for Oaths to execute vector Cap 15 Annexture Endorsement Stamps, digital Jurat blocks, continuous pagination, and searchable OCR in a single browser workflow.

1. The Statutory Anatomy of Rule 9 (Cap 15) Exhibit Endorsements

Rule 9 of the Oaths and Statutory Declarations Rules states unequivocally: "All exhibits to affidavits shall be securely sealed thereto under the seal of the commissioner, and shall be marked with serial letters of identification." Kenyan superior courts have repeatedly held that an annexture that is merely stapled or merged at the back of an affidavit without the Commissioner for Oaths' identifying endorsement is a "flying exhibit" of no evidentiary weight.

A compliant Rule 9 exhibit endorsement stamp must clearly state:

• The deponent's full name as it appears in the head of the affidavit;
• The unique serial exhibit identifier (e.g., "JKN-1", "JKN-2", or paginated bundle range "Pages 14 to 28");
• The date of commissioning matching the Jurat of the parent affidavit; and
• The official seal and signature of the Commissioner for Oaths before whom the affidavit was sworn.

2. Continuous Bundle Pagination vs. Individual Exhibit Marking

Modern practice directions across the High Court Commercial & Tax Division and the Court of Appeal strongly encourage—and in many divisions require—that all annextures to an affidavit be bound into a single, continuously paginated bundle where the affidavit refers to both the exhibit mark and the exact running page range (e.g., "Annexed hereto and marked 'JKN-3' at pages 24 to 39 of the Bundle is a true copy of the Charge dated...").

Using KortiBundle's Page Inspector & Stamp Studio, advocates can:

1. Preview the exact page range of every annexture in the left-hand index rail before finalizing the affidavit text;
2. Drag-and-drop customizable Commissioner for Oaths / Rule 9 Exhibit Stamps and advocate signatures onto the first page of each exhibit;
3. Generate a companion Section 106B Electronic Evidence Certificate whenever the annextures include WhatsApp exports, M-Pesa statements, KRA iTax acknowledgments, or email chains; and
4. Flatten the vector annotations directly into the PDF content stream so stamps cannot be shifted or stripped after filing.