(c) being a referendum officer, an agent of a registered referendum committee or a witness, contravenes subsection 164(1) (failure to maintain secrecy);

15 (1) Every person in attendance at a polling place or at the counting of the votes shall maintain and aid in maintaining the secrecy of the voting.

In order to effectively combat discrimination in accordance with Article 10 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), to assist in ensuring compliance with Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and to pursue the aim of full employment and social progress, in accordance with Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), as well as in order to monitor progress towards Union policy objectives, such as the Europe 2020 headline targets, it is necessary to have comparable, reliable and objective statistics on the situation of employed persons, unemployed persons and persons outside the l ...[+++]abour market, while respecting statistical confidentiality, privacy and protection of personal data.

As a preliminary point, it should be noted that, although under the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations any decision taken under the Staff Regulations that might adversely affect the person to whom it is addressed must state the grounds on which it is based, as far as concerns decisions taken by a selection board in a competition, the obligation to state reasons must be reconciled with observance of the secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards provided for in Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regul ...[+++]ations of Officials (judgment of 4 July 1996 in Case C‑254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati, paragraph 24).

In the case of decisions taken by a selection board in a competition, that obligation must be reconciled with observance of the secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards pursuant to Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations.

For the purposes of the present appeal, it must first be stated that the Civil Service Tribunal recalled that any decision relating to a specific individual which is taken under the Staff Regulations and adversely affects that person must state the reasons on which it is based, on the one hand, to enable the competent court to review the legality of the decision and, on the other, to provide the person concerned with the information necessary to allow him to ascertain whether or not the decision is well founded and to enable him to decide whether to bring an action. It added, however, referring to Case C‑254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati [1996] ECR I‑3423, paragraphs 24 to 28, that, as far as concerns decisions taken by a selection board in ...[+++]a competition, the obligation to state reasons must be reconciled with observance of the secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards by virtue of Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations, secrecy which was instituted with a view to guaranteeing the independence of selection boards and the objectivity of their proceedings. Thus, observance of this secrecy precludes both disclosure of the attitudes adopted by individual members of selection boards and disclosure of any factors relating to individual or comparative assessments of candidates and that the obligation to state the reasons on which decisions of a selection board in a competition are based must take account of the nature of the proceedings concerned, which, at the stage of examination of the abilities of the candidates, are primarily comparative in character and accordingly covered by the secrecy inherent in those proceedings (paragraphs 30 and 31 of the judgment under appeal).