69As regards the positive definition of the concept of a lawyer’s ‘independence’, the Court has expressly stated that that independence must be understood not as the lack of any connection whatsoever between the lawyer and his or her client, but only of those which have a manifestly detrimental effect on his or her capacity to carry out the task of defending his or her client while acting in that client’s interests to the greatest possible extent, in line with the law and professional rules and codes of conduct (see, to that effect, judgment of 4 February 2020, Uniwersytet Wrocławski and Poland v REA, C‑515/17 P and C‑561/17 P, EU:C:2020:73, paragraphs 62 to 64).
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