Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's fight to be rescued from death row has moved to Indonesia's constitutional court, a challenge their lawyers argue is more than a delaying tactic.
The Bali Nine pair on Monday lost a bid to challenge their clemency rejections in the state administrative court, which upheld its earlier decision that presidential decrees were outside its jurisdiction.
Jakarta is now just waiting on the legal efforts of a few other prisoners before setting an execution date.
Chan and Sukumaran's lawyers on Thursday sought a constitutional court review to make clear the president's obligations on considering clemency.
They also wish to challenge the barrier preventing foreign citizens from constitutional court appeals.
Attorney-General HM Prasetyo has dismissed the challenge as delaying tactics and says he won't recognise it.
Indonesian lawyer for the death row pair, Inneke Kusuma, told reporters the effort was not aimed at delaying the executions, but clarifying a prisoner's rights.
The president's obligations when assessing a prisoner's life were unclear, she argued, for example, the weight that should be given to rehabilitation.
"This judicial review won't delay the executions but we will tell the government please hold on until this process is done, because if the constitutional court accepts what we lodge, the documents, maybe there will be a new mechanism to consider their clemency," she said.
The challenge was lodged in Thursday and could take several months.
The lawyers' argument is that President Joko Widodo breached his responsibilities to treat the applications for mercy on their merits, instead rejecting them because he wishes to deny clemency to all death row drug offenders.
Mr Prasetyo says the pair have had their appeals and any constitutional court decision would only apply to future cases anyway.
His spokesman says they are still considering setting the executions for a date in April that avoids the Asia-Africa Conference, when Indonesia plays host to various heads of state.
The Sydney men are now imprisoned on Central Java's Nusakambangan island, where Indonesia would execute them by firing squad.
Two of the other eight prisoners in line for execution with the Australians have applied for Supreme Court judicial reviews, while another is also pursuing an administrative court case.
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