Lawyers are battling to try to save the lives of the condemned Bali Nine ringleaders despite Indonesian president Joko Widodo vowing to show no mercy and uncertainty over whether a second review of their case will be allowed by the courts.
One explanation behind Mr Joko's refusal to save Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran is the disastrous backlash after the previous president's almost unprecedented decision to grant clemency to four people on death row.
In 2011 and 2012 Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono commuted the sentences of four narcotics prisoners to life in prison at a time when he was advocating for Indonesians facing execution overseas.
"Beforehand, there had been only one known case of clemency for a capital offence in the past 30 years," said Dave McRae, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne.
However the decision backfired when one of the prisoners granted clemency was arrested more than a year later for allegedly being a high-level player in a drug syndicate while behind bars.
"The arrests were a major embarrassment to the government, spurring accusations of carelessness and naivety, and even that drug syndicates had infiltrated the president's ring of advisors," Dr McRae said.
"That's what precipitated the resumption of the death penalty in 2013 and that backlash continues to the present day."
Well-known human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis filed an application for a second judicial into Chan and Sukumaran's case on Friday although doubt remains over whether it will be allowed.
The twin peaks of the Indonesian judicial system – the Constitutional and Supreme Court – disagree about whether more than one judicial review is permissible if new evidence is produced.
"Thank God all the process is done (and) accepted by the court," Mr Mulya said.
He said the legal team was asking for 20 years imprisonment rather than the death penalty because the Bali Nine's crime had been to try to export and not import heroin. "Secondly we are asking for the judicial review because the death sentence is against the law, it's against the constitution, because the right to life has to be respected. During the 10 years (in prison) Andrew and Myuran have fundamentally changed."
Denpasar District Court spokesman Hasoloan Sianturi said the application would be carefully examined by the head of the court.
"It's an important case, it will surely be examined carefully, it will not be rushed. It will take the proper time to be examined," he said.
Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo this week told a hearing his office was considering the timing of the next round of executions, which are likely to be held on Nusakambangan island, off the coast of Java, known as Indonesia's equivalent of Alcatraz.
He reportedly said the office had allocated 258 million rupiah (about $26,000AUD) for the execution of each felon.
Chan and Sukumaran are among 11 prisoners on death row who are facing the firing squad after their clemency pleas were rejected by Mr Joko this month.
Mr Joko this week told CNN there would be no amnesty for drug dealers.
Asked if there would be any relief for Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, he shook his head,
"Imagine every day we have 50 people die because of narcotics, in one year it's 18,000 because of narcotics.
"We are not going to compromise for drug dealers. No compromise. No compromise."
