Lord Scott emphasised the fact it was she who applied for the certificate, and, as such, invited the chief police officer to exercise his duty under Section 115(7). Lord Scott disagreed with Lord Hope’s conclusion that applications for ECRCs are sought “only on the basis that their right to private life is respected”, concluding that almost all information disclosed would be information about private life, and if it is relevant and reasonable to include it, there could be no objection to its inclusion. Lord Brown agreed with the judgments of Lords Hope and Neuberger. Lord Neuberger first looked at whether the operation of Section 115 of the 1997 Act fell within the reach of Article 8 and concluded that it did on for a number of reasons: first, the basis that ECRCs would often have a highly significant effect on the applicant and, if adverse, would effectively shut off forever all employment opportunities for the applicants in a large number of different fields. Second, to be excluded from a large sector of the job market would frequently have a significant effect on one's private life in terms of career satisfaction, development of personal relationships and the ability to earn a living. Third, an adverse ECRC would involve the release of information concerning the applicant which is stored on public records (regardless of the fact that some of it may be in the public domain). In the present case, some of the information in the ECRC was not publicly available and not even based on events which had taken place in public. Lord Neuberger next looked at whether the applicant’s Article 8 rights were infringed by Section 115 of the 1997 Act. Lord Neuberger concluded that were Section 115(7)(a) – that the information “might be relevant” for the purposes of Section 115(2) – the sole criterion for determining whether information be included in the ECRC then Article 8 would be infringed. However, given Section 115(7)(b) – which also requires that the information “ought to be included” – Article 8 was not infringed as this gives the opportunity for the balancing act required by Article 8 to be employed by the Chief Officer at this stage. He agreed with Lord Hope that the issue was essentially one of proportionality.