With the Australians losing their appeal in Indonesia’s Administrative Court their lawyers are looking to the Constitutional Court with the hope that Indonesian President Joko Widodo will consider clemency pleas individually, taking into account prisoners' behaviour in jail.

Kalaru based human rights activist and senior advocate with Foreign Prisoner Support Service Martin Hodgson has been working very closely with the case and said the pair deserve the right to have their case heard in the Constitutional Court.

“There is no clear outline [in Indonesian law] as to how to defend yourself from the death penalty,” he said.

“Processes aren’t written in stone or mapped out like it is in the United States.”

The Constitutional Court recommended in 2007 that prisoners who have spent 10 years on death row and have shown to have rehabilitated should have their sentences commuted to imprisonment.

“We’re not at the full 10 years but we are so close,” Mr Hodgson said.

“There’s absolutely no doubt they have rehabilitated.”

Mr Chan and Mr Sukumuran's lawyers are looking at every possible legal avenue to persuade a court to rule on whether the president should have considered the Australians clemency pleas on an individual basis.

They are now holding out hope that President Widodo will come under enough political pressure to reassess their pleas if the court rules that the constitution requires the president to properly consider clemency submissions.

Mr Hodgson said the challenge will examine whether the death penalty for drug smuggling is legal and pressure the president to “at least read the reports on their rehabilitation”.

“He [President Wododo] didn’t read any of them and said ‘no they have to die’,” Mr Hodgson said.

“He is not taking it seriously at all.”

Due to be executed alongside the Australian pair is Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, a paranoid schizophrenic.

“He doesn’t even know where he is,” Mr Hodgson said.

“It’s an absolute breach of human rights.”

Mr Hodgson senses that not following through with the executions will make the president look weak in some areas of Indonesia, and that the executions could be sold to the public as a big win for the government against illegal drugs.

“The boys were caught up in an election campaign as well as geopolitics,” Mr Hodgson said.

He said that a judicial body is currently investigating whether there was corruption at the initial trial.

“It would be a travesty if their investigation is stopped because of their execution… you can’t bring them back,” he said.

“No one thought it would actually come to this because Indonesia was moving away from the death penalty for victimless crimes such as drug trafficking and corruption.”

In fact, Fairfax reported in February that two Indonesian judges involved in the Bali nine case have since been sacked for corruption or manipulating cases.

“The confusion and uncertainty in the system means there is no chance of a fair trial,” Mr Hodgson said.

“To think that they are kingpins that have the millions of dollars to put up front to purchase it all, there’s no way.”

With news last weekend that Australian national Anthony Roger Bannister may be facing the death penalty after an alleged attempt to smuggle more than three kilograms of crystal methamphetamine into Australia from Guangzhou, China, Australia may also be facing a diplomatic battle with China over the death penalty. 

At least 10 Australians have been charged in China in the past year with serious drug offences that can attract the death penalty.