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Bali Nine lawyers get a day in court

Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan’s lawyers will return to court next week in their appeal against a decision to throw out their death row challenge.

Their legal team wants to argue President Joko Widodo didn’t properly assess their case, including their well-documented rehabilitation.

The State Administrative Court last month wouldn’t hear the case on jurisdictional grounds.

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They appealed, and the same court on Thursday adjourned until Wednesday, when they will return with supporting evidence including expert witnesses.

Lawyers for the state will respond on the following Monday.

In court on Thursday they argued that the challenge against the dismissal of the men’s clemency was not within the jurisdiction of the administrative court, and challenged the authority of the president.

Judge Ujang Abdullah set a final hearing for April 1, with a decision to be announced shortly afterwards.

Lawyer for Chan and Sukumaran, Leonard Arpan, said after the hearing they would have to wait until Wednesday to see what evidence their team would bring.

“Actually their response is not apples to apples with ours,” he said, meaning the state hadn’t countered all of the issues in the appeal.

Mr Arpan would not discuss what further legal appeals may be planned for the Australians, who are already incarcerated on the island where Indonesia plans to execute them for their role in a 2005 drug smuggling plot.

Meanwhile Australia’s new ambassador to Indonesia, Paul Grigson, on Thursday presented his credentials to Mr Joko at the State Palace in Jakarta.

Mr Grigson replaces Greg Moriarty who served from 2010.

New ambassadors for New Zealand, Hungary, the Philippines, Iran and Panama also met Mr Joko and Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi.

Jakarta is indicating it would prefer to wait for the legal appeals of some of the 10 death row drug convicts it plans to kill to clear, in order to leave “no problems behind” afterwards.

Seven of the 10 have appeals of some sort, and the attorney-general plans to execute them simultaneously.

The executions would take place on Nusakambangan island, Central Java, where Chan and Sukumaran are now jailed in quarantine cells.

AAP

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