However their lawyers have vowed to keep on fighting and will this week take legal action in the constitutional court.

The State Administrative Court of Jakarta threw out the appeal on Monday afternoon on the grounds it did not have jurisdiction to rule on presidential decrees. The prospect for Chan and Sukumaran's lives being spared is now extremely bleak.

Their lawyer, Leonard Arpan Aritonang, said he was disappointed by the result but it would not stop the legal team's efforts to win clemency. They will ask the constitutional court to clarify the Indonesian president's obligations in relation to clemency.

The action will be in collaboration with the National Commission on Human Rights in Indonesia (Komnas HAM) and other non-government organisations.

Asked if the constitutional court action would postpone the execution, Mr Aritonang said : "We hope the government respects the ongoing legal process."

However human rights lawyer Professor Todung Mulya Lubis earlier told Fairfax Media that any decision made by the constitutional court would not be retrospective and therefore would not affect the outcome for Chan and Sukumaran.

The men will remain in semi-isolation on Besi Prison on Nusakambangan until the outcomes of the legal cases of other death row inmates are known. No date has yet been set for the execution.

The Indonesian government has vowed to kill the 10 drug felons simultaneously, because, it says, staggering the executions would affect the psychological state of the inmates.

Chan and Sukumaran's lawyers had hoped to challenge in the Administrative Court Indonesian President Joko Widodo's refusal to grant 64 drug felons mercy on the grounds Indonesia is facing a drug emergency. They said he should have examined Chan and Sukumaran's clemency pleas on an individual basis and taken into account their rehabilitation.

However Chief Justice Ujang Abdullah upheld an earlier decision on February 24 that the court did not have jurisdiction over presidential clemency.

Professor Mulya told Fairfax before the decision was brought down that the legal team would have to think "outside the box" if the appeal failed: "We will have to find our way and ground to launch another legal action."

The Judicial Commission is also investigating claims by the men's previous lawyer that the judges who sentenced the men to death offered lighter sentences in exchange for bribes. However that investigation is unlikely to affect the executions.

The Attorney-General's Office is now waiting for the Supreme Court's decision on case review requests filed by Serge Areski Atlaoui of France and Martin Anderson of Ghana.

Lawyers for Indoensian man Zainal Abidin will lodge a request for a judicial review into his case next week.

The Supreme Court says it will expedite the cases of those on death row.

Filipina maid Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso had her judicial review request rejected in days, when the process normally takes up to three months.

The Attorney-General has said that Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte is mentally fit to be executed, even though he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

with Karuni Rompies