Malaysia is reportedly mulling a repeal of its death penalty laws,and if it pushes through, an Aussie man could be saved from the gallows soon, reports said.

According to ABC, Kuala Lumpur is seriously studying the possibility of doing away with government-sanctioned execution, which is part of the country's mandatory capital punishments against heinous crimes.

Malaysia's list of heinous crimes includes selling of drugs - the same charges that Perth native Dominic Bird is accused of by the Malaysian police.

Mr Bird was arrested on March 2012 in the Malaysian capital and has been fighting in court since then a criminal case that says "he offered to sell undercover police 167 grams of methamphetamine," the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported on Monday.

If found guilty, the court is legally required to send him to the death row, though AAP has noted that the case will not be resolved until 2014.

However, the Australian national may get a reprieve much sooner than the actual court verdict, according to Charles Hector of the Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture.

"(Malaysia) is realising that the people who have been arrested, charged and convicted, most of the time are mules, and sometimes some of them are actually conned and many of these are young people," Mr Hector told ABC on Tuesday.

The signs are encouraging, said Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who serves as defence lawyer for Mr Bird, adding that imposition of the death penalty both in Malaysia and Singapore "has slowed down, in terms of execution."

He offered that "there is some kind of moratorium," but quickly added that his assessment could be wrong.

"But as you know a moratorium is normally given when you are considering a change of the law. That could be the situation," Mr Abdullah told ABC on Tuesday.

In the event that the Malaysian government walks away from the death penalty in the months ahead, Mr Bird will benefit from the decision as the amended laws will be applied to him in retrospect, Mr Hector said.

But even without the prospect of the death penalty repeal, Mr Abdullah said he is upbeat of saving the life of his client due to admission by the Malaysian police that only 0.07 per cent of the drugs allegedly confiscated from Mr Bird were tested.

As required by Malaysian laws, "the police were required to test a minimum of 10 per cent of the contents of each package in which the drugs were contained," which did not happen, Mr Abdullah told AAP.

This 'serious flaw' on the part of the Malaysian police investigation will be countered by 'technical defence', the defence lawyer said.

"It is not a hopeless case. It is a case that we can defend," Mr Abdullah said of Mr Bird's case.