The Law Institute of  Victoria has organised the vigil on the steps of the County Court and will hold a minute’s silence for the Australians, whose death penalty could be delivered within days. 

Ballarat and District Law Association president Rob Gray described their imminent deaths as “primitive and barbaric”, and said Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry would address those attending.

“The idea that the government would take individuals out into the bush and shoot them is something I can never live with, can never understand,” Justice Lasry recently told the media. 

Mr Gray shared a similar sentiment. 

“I am grateful and proud to live in a country that has abandoned this primitive and barbaric form of ultimate and irreversible punishment,” he said. 

“As the French philosopher Albert Camus once said, ‘Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders’.”

Chan and Sukumaran were sentenced 10 years ago for drug trafficking and given the death penalty. 

They have been held in a Bali jail and are reported to have turned their lives around and been rehabilitated successfully.

It was announced on Monday that the pair would this week be moved to the island where they will be executed.

Victorian Bar chairman Jim Peters QC said killing the men would “brutalise” the community. “We urge all our colleagues to join us to support these two young Australian men,” Mr Peters said.

“The death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime. The sanctity of human life is not protected by this barbaric penalty.”

Ballarat lawyer Dianne Hadden said the Ballarat law fraternity felt “helpless”, adding she had signed several clemency and mercy petitions. 

“For those of us who care in Australia, it’s just gut-wrenching,” Ms Hadden said. 

“We don’t put to death Indonesians that are convicted in our country and we don’t have the death penalty for a very good reason.

“I just feel so helpless and goodness knows what those men are feeling, it’s just unimaginable.”

patrick.byrne@fairfaxmedia.com.au

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