... that someone scrupulous was sitting there who preferred objecting to permitting/enabling.

Vielleicht zu umschreibend??

Danke, geht wohl in die richtige Richtung. Schön wäre aber ein
'noun' ggf. auch Slang statt 'so. who is scrupulous'.

Vielleicht kommen weitere Ideen...

Archiv

Gibt schon einen thread im Archiv dazu. Mir scheint dabei notorious concern raiser der treffendste Ausdruck zu sein. Vorgeschlagen wurde auch naysayer, aber das geht eher in Richtung Neinsager/grundsätzliche Ablehnung. Worrywart scheint vor allem im AE verbreitet zu sein.

Here's the archive thread:
related discussion

It's interesting and long but IMO not at all conclusive. There may not be any single one-to-one translation.

I'm not crazy about either 'concern raiser' or 'objection raiser.' Both sound very artificial to me, and I certainly wouldn't suggest either as a dictionary entry, although they might get the point across in a translation.

'Skeptic,' 'naysayer,' and 'alarmist' all seem not unreasonable even though they're not exactly the same. If I had to pick one I'd go for 'naysayer,' especially for someone who says 'no' more than 'yes.'

'Worrywart' may be too casual/slangy, and to my ears it connotes a more general emotional attitude of fear and pessimism as opposed to a tendency to (over-)analyze specific objections or concerns.

'Scrupulous' seems incorrect not only because it's an adjective but because in modern English it's generally positive: careful, paying attention to necessary details, conscientious; or principled, ethical. To make it negative you have to add 'over-'.