25In the second place, as regards the objective pursued by the second sentence of Article 38(3) of the GDPR, first, recital 97 of that regulation states that data protection officers, whether or not they are employees of the controller, should be in a position to perform their duties and tasks in an independent manner. In that regard, such independence must necessarily enable them to carry out those tasks in accordance with the objective of the GDPR, which seeks, inter alia, as is apparent from recital 10 thereof, to ensure a high level of protection of natural persons within the European Union and, to that end, to ensure a consistent and homogeneous application of the rules for the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of such natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data throughout the European Union (judgment of 22 June 2022, Leistritz, C‑534/20, EU:C:2022:495, paragraph 26 and the case-law cited).
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