Why East African Courts Are Tightening Formatting Rules

There's a reasonable assumption that digitizing a court system would make formatting requirements looser, not stricter, since a computer doesn't care about a slightly uneven margin the way a fussy registry clerk might. In practice, the opposite is happening across East Africa. As courts move from paper to electronic filing, formatting requirements are getting more specific and more consistently enforced, not less. Here's why, and what's actually happening in each jurisdiction.

Paper tolerated inconsistency in a way digital systems don't

A human clerk accepting a physical filing could exercise judgment. A document slightly off from the expected margin, or missing a page number in the usual place, might still get accepted, with a quiet word to fix it next time. An electronic filing system built around a specific document template doesn't have that flexibility unless it's explicitly programmed to. It either matches the expected structure or it doesn't. This is the underlying reason formatting rules tend to tighten, not loosen, as a court system digitizes: the system needs the rule stated precisely enough to check against, and needs filers to actually follow it.

Kenya: specific, court-by-court formatting rules already in force

Kenya's courts illustrate this most concretely, because the requirements are already written down in detail, court by court.

• Supreme Court: Times New Roman, size 12, double-spaced, specific margins, page numbering top-right, and tenthlining required on all documents (Supreme Court (General) Practice Directions, 2020, Paragraphs 11-12).
• Court of Appeal: 1.5 spacing, minimum 12-point font, page numbering top-right, tenthlining required generally and specifically on applications and affidavits (Court of Appeal Practice Directions, 2015, Paragraphs 1 and 3).
• High Court: specific font and margin requirements, page numbering bottom-right, and tenthlining required specifically for Records of Appeal in civil appeals, alongside a nationwide e-filing system now in place (High Court Practice Directions, 2022, Paragraphs 9-14).

These rules existed before the current digitization push, but the rollout of Kenya's nationwide Electronic Filing System has made following them precisely matter more, not less, because the e-filing portal itself expects documents formatted to a specific standard. See The State of Legal Tech in Kenya: What's Changing in 2026 for the fuller picture of that rollout.

Uganda: a hard deadline for going fully paperless

Uganda has taken the most aggressive stance on a timeline. The Ugandan Judiciary has set a deadline of July 1, 2026 for court processes to become entirely paperless, centered on the Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS), which allows filing, evidence submission, and case tracking online (PC Tech Magazine). Uganda has also introduced the Judicature (Electronic Filing, Service and Virtual Proceedings) Rules, 2025, which govern electronic filing and virtual court proceedings, including how parties apply to appear virtually (ULII). A hard paperless deadline like this typically forces formatting standardization as a side effect: a system built to fully replace paper needs every document to arrive in a predictable, machine-readable structure, which is a stricter bar than paper ever required.

Tanzania: building the infrastructure first

Tanzania's e-justice efforts are, based on available research, still more focused on infrastructure and capacity than on published formatting specifics: increasing ICT budget allocation, expanding internet and bandwidth capacity, and building capacity for digital court records management (Tanzania Public Service College journal). This suggests Tanzania is a step behind Kenya and Uganda in publishing detailed, document-level formatting rules tied to a live e-filing system, but the same underlying pressure, digital systems needing predictable document structure, will likely produce similar formatting specificity once its own e-filing infrastructure matures.

What this means, without overstating it

It's worth being precise here: this isn't a claim that Uganda or Tanzania have adopted anything resembling Kenya's specific tenthlining requirement, and there's no evidence they have. What's shared across the region is the underlying force, not the specific rule. Digitizing court filing tends to make formatting standards more explicit and less negotiable everywhere it happens, because a digital system needs a precise standard to check documents against, and precision only helps if filers actually meet it consistently.

For firms and individual practitioners operating in more than one East African jurisdiction, the practical implication is simple: don't assume a formatting habit that's tolerated in one country's court will be equally tolerated in another, and expect that tolerance, wherever it currently exists, to shrink as each country's own digital filing system matures. For Kenya specifically, where the requirements are already detailed and in force, getting formatting right the first time, rather than relying on a clerk's discretion, is no longer optional. Tenthliner exists for exactly this reason: applying Kenya's court-specific page and every-tenth-line numbering rules automatically and consistently, so this part of the standard holds up regardless of how strict the receiving system is.

Sources: - Uganda's Justice System Goes Digital: Paper-Based Courts to Be Phased Out by 2026 - Judicature (Electronic Filing, Service and Virtual Proceedings) Rules, 2025 - Adoption and Use of Digital Court Records on E-justice (Tanzania)