Currently the Consultative Council is composed of nine members. The significance and specificity meanwhile acquired by the consultative duties, initially incumbent on the Attorney General, have thus justified the acquisition of their own structure presided over by the Attorney General. The Public Prosecutors' intervention follows closely the procedural rules applied to the courts. Such evolution can not be dissociated from the history of the Portuguese institutions involved in consultative matters. The existance of consultative bodies by the State supreme organs has been an experience constantly put in practice.
Most countries have consultative bodies known in Europe as the 'conseil d'Etat '.
Being granted, at first, the materially political duties, the conseil bodies developed and, in the 16th century, they already comprised all the State affairs on which the King wished to hear them, namely the foreign affairs. The 1826 Constitutional Charter restored the State council and, inspired by the French exemple, granted it the consultative duties of a not exclusively political nature. This organisation lasted until 1870, when the duties regarding the litigious matters began ti be fulfilled by the Supreme Administrative Court, and the consultative duties began to be carried out by the Attorney General's Office. This Court was restored by Order 11.250, dated the 19th of November 1925, although bearing simply the jurisdictional duties. The consultative powers of the Supreme Administrative Court were only conferred a true value during the first phase, i.e. until 1870.