That seems like an approach that has some merit to me. Imagine a country with a corrupt judiciary. In such a country it's sometimes feasible for someone with influence of some sort to cause a single particular person to be convicted of a crime, but causing a large enough targeted fraction of the population to be convicted of crimes is at most feasible over much longer periods of time. So, that serves as a mechanism that should make it easier to get back from the brink of autocracy.
I'm not sure whether the cure is better than the disease in this case.