The formal proposal for the creation of the commission was made by the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gianni De Michelis, who invited the other Foreign Affairs ministers of the Council of Europe to the Conference for the Creation of the European Commission for Democracy through Law that was held at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice from 31 March to 1 April 1989.

The committee of ministers, seeking to assist the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, approved the creation of the Commission as a partial agreement at the session in Venice from 19 to 20 January 1990.

The Foreign Affairs and Justice Ministers of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia also participated as observers in this meeting.

On 10 May 1990 ministers from 18 countries (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey) of the Council of Europe adopted the statute of the Commission.

The Venice Commission Opinions on specific countries cover a wide range of topics: the system of checks and balances, and the relations amongst different branches of power, the territorial organisation of the States, principles of the rule of law, fundamental rights and freedoms, organisation of the bodies of the constitutional justice, the governance of the judiciary and of the prosecution service, status and powers of ombudspersons, reforms of the electoral system, regulations on the political parties and referendums, etc.

After discussions with the national authorities and stakeholders in the country, the working group prepares a draft opinion on whether the legislative text meets the democratic standards in its field and on how to improve it on the basis of common experience.

For this reason the working group, as a rule, visits the country concerned and meets with the different political actors involved in the issue in order to ensure the most objective view of the situation.

In this context, at the European Union's request, the Venice Commission has played an important role in developing and interpreting the constitutional law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro as well as that of Kosovo.

The aim of the Council for Democratic Elections is to ensure co-operation in the electoral field between the Venice Commission as a legal body and the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of the Council of Europe as political bodies, in order to promote the European common values in the field of elections – the principles of the European electoral heritage.

Since its creation, the Venice Commission has been aware that it is not sufficient to assist the states in the adoption of democratic constitutions but that these texts have to be implemented in reality.

It mentioned that in other European Countries, such as Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova, Romania and the Russian Federation, there seems to be a consensus about having two-thirds as the quorum that would allow the Constitutional Court to decide; the German Federal Constitutional Court, on the other hand, has a three-fourths requirement in both of its eight-member chambers.

[26] While European legislators agree for the need of quorum that goes above an absolute majority, the Commission warns that the proposed changes could lead to inefficiency and make the Tribunal "dysfunctional".

[27] In addition, the Commission reviews the "sequence rule", the majority for adopting decisions (2/3), and the delay on hearings, as procedural aspects, along with the disciplinary proceedings and the Tribunal's composition—all parts of the new legislation.

[19] Among the most controversial changes were the rules on the composition of this body, whereby the adoption of this legislation forced the premature ending of the term of the contemporary members and further politicized the process of the election of the new ones.

[31] To summarize, in a period of only two years after PiS election there have been 13 laws that transformed the judiciary branch and the structure of Polish justice system, from the Constitutional Tribunal, the NCJ, to the lower courts across the country.

[33] In addition, towards the end the Commission focuses on the legal Polish puzzle as a whole and concludes that "each of them [the new laws]... [put] at serious risks the independence of all parts of the judiciary in Poland".

[34] It was followed by a prolonged period of internal consultations and additional deliberations in Montenegro, resulting in the creation of a new draft law, that was followed by another opinion of the VC, issued in June 2019,[35] recommending various improvements and clarifications.