One of the best things that happened over the Lunar New Year festivities was that, albeit inadvertently, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong showed that its first instinct was to resort to the law in its continuing battle with the League of Social Democrats.
It may be argued that the DAB was over-reacting in seeking breach of copyright redress against the league for selling T-shirts using its logo to mock the party. But what is significant is that, despite all the rhetoric of wanting to embrace the motherland in every respect, the DAB was quick to resort to one of the major pillars of Hong Kong life that sets it apart from the way that the rest of China is governed.
The party did so in the knowledge that the rule of law in Hong Kong means that everyone is equal under the law and that the laws clearly set out what is permissible. Members also know that, at the end of the day, judgments are not made on the basis of political considerations.
Yet, the very people so keen to use the legal system in their battle against mockery from opponents were to be found in the Legislative Council arguing that an attempt to force a referendum on constitutional reform was 'illegal', not because it is proscribed by law but because it should be proscribed on the grounds that it contradicted their political views.
And it is among the DAB's membership that pressure is mounting for the appointment of a new chief justice who will be less influenced by such rotten old colonial conventions and will have greater understanding of the political imperatives that operate within the mainland legal system.
Andrew Li Kwok-nang, who has announced his early retirement from the post of chief justice, is seen as a stalwart of the legal system governed by traditions and practices that are frankly alien to anything on the other side of the border.
It is vital that his replacement should uphold these values but, by the simple expedient of describing them as 'colonial', they might be dismissed as irrelevant to the new Hong Kong.